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IRiebet'e  ^beological  Xibrarp* 


*      JUL  13  1922 
St*' 


'^e,  —  -^ 


THE   GOSPEL  ACCOED 
TO   ST.   PAUL 


STUDIES  IN  THE  FIRST  EIGHT  CHAPTERS  OF 
HIS  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS 


/ 

REV.  J.  OSWALD  DYKES,  U.A.  D.T). 

AUTHOR  OP 

THE  MANIFESTO  OP  THE  KING,"  "ABRAHAM,  THE  FRIEND  OF  GOD" 

ETC.  ETC. 


Kara  rb  €vayy{\i6v  fiov 


NEW  YORK: 

ROBERT  CARTER  &  BROTHERS, 

530  BROADWAY. 

18S8. 


PKEFACE. 


Any  one  who  pays  to  this  book  the  compliment  of 
glancing  through  its  pages  will  readily  perceive  that  it 
is  neither  a  commentary  nor  a  treatise  in  theology.  It 
is  neither  addressed  to  scholars  nor  to  divines. 

Nor  does  it  set  forth  any  novel  interpretation  of  the 
Apostle's  teaching.  After  so  many  centuries  of  study, 
the  likelihood  that  it  has  been  reserved  for  this  generation 
to  discover  the  right  sense  of  St.  Paul's  most  important 
Letter  appears  to  the  Author  sufficiently  small. 

What  he  has  ventured  to  attempt  is  to  restate  in  plain 
— that  is,  non-technical  —  language  the  course  of  the 
argument  and  the  development  of  thought  through  these 
famous  chapters,  in  such  a  way  as  may  prove  of  assistance 
to  readers  who  possess  an  intelligent  interest  in  evan- 
gelical truth.  How  far  he  has  been  successful  in  this 
attempt  it  is  for  others  to  say. 

About  one-half  of  the  volume  appeared  some  time  ago 
in  the  columns  of  the  ^'  Homiletic  Magazine."  These 
chapters  have  been  revised.  The  rest  is  printed  here  for 
the  first  time. 


Yl  PREFACE. 

Thanks  are  due  and  are  hereby  given  to  the  University 
Press  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  the  Proprietors  of  the 
^'  Pievised  Version,"  for  kindly  permitting  that  rendering 
of  the  text  to  be  prefixed  to  each  chapter. 

No  one  can  be  so  well  aware  as  the  Author  himself 
how  far  his  work  falls  short  alike  of  its  theme  and  of 
his  own  design.  May  He  of  Whose  Way  of  Salvation  it 
treats  deign  to  forgive  its  faults  and  use  it  for  His  own 
sacred  ends,  for  Jesus'  sake,  Amen. 


CONTENTS, 


CHAP. 

I.    AT   ROME   ALSO 


II.    RIGHTEOUSNESS   BY  FAITH       . 
III.   THE   NATURAL   HISTORY   OF   PAGANISM 
IV.   THE   PRACTICAL   OUTCOME   OF   JUDAISM 
V.   JEWISH   OBJECTIONS   REPELLED 
VL   EVERY   MOUTH   STOPPED. 

viL  Paul's  evangel     .... 

VIIL   A  levelling   GOSPEL      . 

IX.   A  CRUCIAL   CASE      .... 
X.   IMMEDIATE   RESULTS   OF   JUSTIFICATION 

XI.  A  HISTORICAL  PARALLEL 
XIL  FREE  GRACE  AND  SIN  . 
XIIL   ASSIMILATION  THROUGH   FAITH 

XIV.  Christ's  death  to  sin 
XV.  of  realising  the  ideal 

XVL   BONDMEN   OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

xvir.  "law  v.  grace"  .... 


FAGB 

I 

13 
25 
38 

52 

65 

77 

89 

99 
113 
126 

143 
155 
164 
172 
182 
191 


Vlil 


C0^' TENTS. 


CHAP. 

XVIII.    A  CHAPTER   IN   SAUL's   EARLY   LIFE 

XIX.    MORE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY  :   DUALISM   IN   THE   LIFE 

XX.   LIFE   IN'  THE   SPIRIT  .... 

XXL   FROM   PRESENT   LIFE   TO   FUTURE   GLORY 

XXIL    THE   GROANS   OF   CREATION      . 

XXIII.  WAITING  IN   HOPE 

XXIV.  THE   FIVE   LINKS   OF   SALVATION      . 
XXV.    THE   CHALLENGE   OF  FAITH     . 


PAGE 
20I 

211 

225 

246 
256 
265 

273 


^^ 


THE 

GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 


CHAPTER  I. 
AT  ROME   ALSO. 

"I  am  not  ashamed  of  the  Gospel :  for  it  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salva- 
tion to  every  one  that  believcth  ;  to  the  Jew  first,  and  also  to  the  Greek." 

Rom.  i.  i6. 

WHEN  St.  Paul  set  himself  at  Corinth  to  dictate  this 
'  '  long  letter  which  the  deaconess  Phoebe  had  under- 
taken to  carry  with  her  to  the  Roman  Church,  he  had  never 
yet  visited  the  Eternal  City.  For  years,  indeed,  he  tells  us, 
he  had  cherished  a  strong  desire  to  do  so ;  but  the  necessity 
of  finishing  his  work  in  Asia  ]\Iinor  and  Greece,  together 
with  the  disturbed  condition  of  some  of  the  Churches  he 
had  founded  in  these  countries,  had  hitherto  prevented 
him  from  travelling  farther  west.  Now,  however,  he  was 
on  the  point  of  leaving  the  Greek  provinces.  One  small 
piece  of  business  only  remained  to  be  done :  the  sum  of 
money  collected  at  his  desire  by  the  Christians  of  Mace- 
donia and  Achaia  for  converted  Jews  in  the  Holy  Land 
had  to  be  safely  conveyed  to  Jerusalem.  This  was  to  be 
the  winding  up  of  his  mission-work  among  the  Greeks. 

A 


2  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

That  fairly  accomplislied  and  off  his  mind,  he  saw  nothing 
to  keep  him  any  longer  from  sailing  westward,  to  Italy 
first,  and,  if  God  pleased,  far  beyond  Italy,  to  the  land  of 
the  setting  sun,  the  Spanish  Peninsula. 

Already,  therefore,  his  eager  mind  was  full  of  Rome. 
The  departure  of  sister  Phoebe  on  business  which  took  her 
to  the  capital  and  would  need  the  help  of  brethren  there, 
gave  him  an  excellent  opportunity  to  prepare  them  for 
his  own  visit.  Paul  could  not  sit  down  to  write  such  a 
letter  without  having  his  imagination  and  his  feelings 
stirred.  Rome  has  never  ceased  to  be  a  name  of  power 
from  his  day  to  ours  ;  but  nothing  in  its  history  since  then, 
no  modern  analogy,  not  even  the  magic  which  eighteen 
more  centuries  of  vicissitudes  have  gathered  around 
the  word,  can  enable  us  moderns  to  realise  what  Rome 
meant  in  the  first  Christian  century.  London  and  Paris 
rolled  into  one  would  not  be  to  the  world  of  to-day  what 
Rome  was  to  the  world  then.  It  was  simply  and  literally 
the  world's  sole  capital.  Out  from  it  went  forth  the  edicts 
which  the  world  obeyed,  and  the  rulers  whose  coming 
every  land  awaited  as  the  coming  of  its  king.  Back  into 
it  poured  without  stint  or  ceasing  the  tributary  wealth 
of  the  richest  and  fairest  portions  of  the  cultivated  earth 
and  of  all  navigated  seas.  Every  great  road  which  tra- 
versed the  earth  radiated  from  that  one  imperial  city. 
There  was  not  a  fort  or  garrison  town  on  civilized  or 
semi-civilized  territory  but  bore  its  military  ensigns. 
From  Anglesea  to  the  Euphrates,  from  the  mouths  of 
the  Rhine  to  the  cataracts  of  the  Nile,  the  world  knew 
but  one  word  of  power,  and  that  word  was  Rome.  St. 
Paul  was  a  Roman  citizen  :  could  the  thought  that  he 
too,  at  last,  should  see  Rome,  and  carry  his  message  to 
the  heart  of  the  mighty  mistress  city,  fail  to  quicken  his 
pulses  ? 


AT  ROME  ALSO.  3 

For  a  moment,  it  might  almost  seem  as  though  the 
thought  shook  even  his  missionary  courage.  But  he  re- 
calls how  his  great  commission  laid  it  on  him  as  a  "  debt " 
which  he  owed  to  every  Gentile  land  that  he  should  carry  the 
Gospel  to  it.  So  he  braces  himself  for  this  most  arduous 
call,  and,  so  far  as  it  lies  on  him,  proclaims  himself  ready, 
without  shrinking,  to  preach  even  to  the  Romans.  For 
what  need  had  he  even  within  that  seat  of  all  earthly 
power,  military  or  political,  where  its  august  embodiment 
sat  enthroned  and  deified  in  purple,  to  be  ashamed  of  his 
message  as  though  it  were  a  weak  thing  ?  Nay,  but  it  too 
is  a  word  of  power ;  power,  not  of  a  deified  man,  but  of 
the  living  God ;  power,  not  to  enslave  and  crush  and 
bleed  the  tributary  nations,  but  to  save,  to  set  free,  to 
lift  into  everlasting  life  the  souls  of  men.  ''  I  am  not 
ashamed  of  the  Gospel,  for  it  is  God's  power  to  salvation 
to  every  one  that  believeth." 

These  are  brave  words :  but  how  much  more  would  this 
missionary's  confidence  in  his  message  have  been  tried  had 
he  been  permitted  to  foresee  when  and  how  he  should  at 
length  attain  his  desire  to  visit  Rome !  Had  he  foreseen 
that  within  three  months  he  should  be  lying  a  prisoner  in 
a  Roman  castle  at  Cesarea;  that  three  years  must  pass 
before  he  should  enter  the  gates  of  Rome ;  that  when  he 
did  so  it  should  be  in  a  weaker  and  more  shameful  fashion 
than  he  had  ever  dreamed  of,  marching  a  footsore  prisoner 
along  the  Via  Appia,  chained  by  the  wrist  to  a  Roman 
soldier ;  that  the  time  which  he  hoped  to  spend  in  the 
society  of  the  Roman  Church  should  be  simply  years  of 
detention  under  the  strong  hand  of  Roman  law,  broken 
only  by  arraignments  at  the  imperial  tribunal  and  re- 
current fear  of  execution ;  that  at  the  last,  alone,  forsaken, 
an  aged  and  helpless  captive  worn  with  long  imprison- 
ment, he  should  look  his  last  at  Rome  from  that  memor- 


4  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

able  spot  beyond  the  Ostian  Gate,  and  count  it  a  farewell 
boon  due  to  bis  Eoman  citizenship  that  his  head  was  to 
fall  beneath  the  swift  and  merciful  stroke  of  a  Roman 
headsman.  Ah !  had  the  active,  hopeful,  eager  man  who 
wrote  these  words  in  Corinth  foreseen  all  this,  would  he 
have  said  as  stoutly,  "  I  am  not  ashamed  of  the  Gospel, 
for  it  is  God's  power  "  ? 

He  surely  might.  Paul's  word  is  alive  to-day.  Where 
is  the  word  of  Nero  ?  Paul's  Gospel  is  as  much  as  ever 
the  power  of  God.  The  Rome  of  Nero  we  dig  for  to-day 
beneath  its  burial  mounds.  On  the  ruins  of  old  Rome, 
the  message  which  Paul  preached  has  built  a  spiritual 
empire  many  times  wider  than  the  empire  of  the  Csesars. 
The  obscure  missionary  who  was  led  on  foot  through  the 
Appian  Gate  among  the  throng  of  passengers,  bound  to 
a  soldier  of  Nero's  army,  has  proved  the  mightier  of  the 
two  ;  and  who  shall  say  to-day  at  Rome  that  Paul  had 
any  cause  to  be  ashamed  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ  ? 

Let  us  look  more  closely  at  the  ground  of  St.  Paul's 
confidence  in  his  message.  It  was  a  word  of  power  which 
the  man  had  to  speak.  So  far,  there  is  nothing  novel  in 
this.  It  is  by  no  means  a  new  thing  or  without  example, 
that  a  man  with  no  official  or  armed  strength  to  back  him 
should  have  a  message  on  his  tongue  before  which  the 
brute  force  of  arms  and  empire  shall  turn  out  to  be  but 
weakness.  It  is  a  long  while  indeed  since  men  found  out 
that  truth  is  that  which  "  endures  and  is  always  strong," 
which  "  lives  and  conquers  for  evermore."  "  All  works 
shake  and  tremble  at  it,  for  with  it  there  is  no  unright- 
eous thing."  To  know  the  righteous  truth,  and  to  love 
it  and  to  speak  it,  is  to  be  more  than  a  king.  For  it  is 
by  their  thoughts  men  are  really  ruled,  and  he  who  can 
speak  true  thoughts  which  seize  and  sway  the  spirits  of 
his  fellow-men  may  win  an  empire  wider  than  Rome's. 


AT  ROME  ALSO.  5 

Paul  witnessing  to  the  Gospel  at  Nero's  bar  is  a  repetition 
of  his  Master  witnessing  to  Himself  at  Pilate's  bar  ;  and 
the  force  on  which  Jesus  rested  His  own  Kingship  was  no 
other  than  this,  that  He  was  born  to  bear  witness  unto 
the  truth.  There  was,  therefore,  no  reason  to  be  ashamed  of 
the  Gospel  merely  because  it  was  no  more  than  a  Gospel, 
a  message,  a  story,  a  word  of  truth ;  for  words  of  truth 
are  stronger  than  armed  men.  The  very  fact  that  when 
God  undertook  to  save  men  from  their  sins  He  elected 
to  do  it  by  what  Paul  elsewhere  calls  the  "  foolishness 
of  preaching" — that  is,  by  a  spoken  word — proves  that 
among  the  mighty  forces  of  human  history  this  is,  after 
all,  the  mightiest. 

But  then,  in  Paul's  day,  the  world  was  grown  very 
weary  of  words  which  had  in  them  no  power  at  all,  or,  if 
power,  at  least  not  power  to  save.  Some  centuries  earlier, 
Greece  had  held  the  sceptre  among  the  nations,  and  held 
it  by  virtue  of  her  wisdom.  Her  words  had  been  words  of 
teaching.  Mythologies,  philosophies,  literature,  rhetoric, 
science,  art — the  whole  many-provinced  realm  of  intel- 
lectual effort  had  been  hers  without  a  rival ;  but  out  of 
her  wise  words  there  had  come  no  power  of  salvation  for 
suffering  and  sinful  men.  Her  golden  age  was  over  now ; 
her  philosophies  discredited  ;  her  faith  dead ;  her  arts  hired 
out  to  the  foreigner  for  gain ;  and  the  net  result  before 
men's  eyes  was  confessedly  this :  that  by  its  wisdom  the 
world  had  failed  to  know  God.  Cowardice,  greed,  licen- 
tiousness, luxury,  superstition — these  were  the  things 
w^hich  (as  contemporary  literature  shows)  flourished  in  the 
chief  Greek  communities  where  Paul  had  for  years  been 
labouring.  As  for  any  healthful  or  regenerating  power 
men  had  once  dreamt  of  in  Grecian  thought  or  Grecian 
letters,  these  agencies  had  proved  as  weak  before  the  vices 
of  mankind  as  tow  in  flame. 


6      THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

Words  of  power,  indeed,  there  still  were  in  that  world 
which  Paul  knew  ;  words  strong  enough  to  hold  both 
Greek  and  barbarian  in  discontented  quiet ;  words  of  law 
and  order  running  swiftly  through  every  land,  and  felt 
at  the  extremities  of  the  empire.  But  they  were  words, 
not  of  learned,  thoughtful  Greece,  but  of  rude,  warlike 
Rome.  They  were  the  words  of  imperial  edicts  and 
severe  jurisprudence  and  military  command ;  and  no  one 
could  have  lived  as  Paul  had  done  in  many  provinces 
of  the  empire  without  knowing  well  that  the  fearfully 
strong  grasp  of  Roman  despotism,  while  it  held  the  earth 
meantime  tranquil,  and  on  the  whole  ruled  it  justly,  was 
a  grasp  which  could  never  save,  could  only  strangle  and 
kill  the  lives  of  nations  and  of  men. 

The  world  of  that  day  was  weary  enough  of  both. 
Weary  of  words  which  promised  life  but  had  no  power 
to  give  it ;  brain-spun  speculations  about  God  and  man 
which  made  nothing  clear,  which  had  no  influence  what- 
ever over  the  bad  passions  of  the  individual,  which  brought 
no  hope  to  the  poor  or  the  slave :  in  these  Greek  theories 
there  was  no  Gospel  of  power  unto  salvation.  Weary 
too  of  words  which  had  behind  them  the  terrific  and 
sometimes  brutal  strength  of  Roman  legions,  but  used  it 
not  to  elevate  subject  races,  to  enfranchise  the  enslaved, 
to  regenerate  public  manners,  to  purify,  to  teach ;  used 
it  only  to  bind  the  yoke  firmer  on  the  degenerate  peoples, 
to  crush  out  every  nobler  instinct,  to  debauch  the  mob  with 
cruel  spectacles,  to  make  the  great  world  one  vast  pre- 
serve, feeding  the  pride  and  luxury  of  an  Italian  court. 
In  the  words  of  Roman  rule  also  there  was  no  Gospel  unto 
salvation. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this,  St.  Paul  carried  what  he  knew 
to  be  a  divine  message  of  help — God's  own  miraculous 
word,  charged  with  a  loftier  wisdom  than  that  of  Greece, 


AT  ROME  ALSO.  7 

backed  by  a  miglitier  authority  than  that  of  Rome,  and 
instinct  with  spiritual  life  and  everlasting  salvation  for  the 
men  of  every  land.  What  that  heavenly  message  is  it 
was  the  object  of  this  long  letter  to  unfold.  Briefly,  it 
may  be  said  to  be  the  revelation  of  God's  righteousness 
in  His  Son  and  of  God's  life  by  His  Spirit.  Of  God's 
righteousness  first,  which  was  by  faith  of  Jesus  Christ 
to  all  them  that  believed,  in  virtue  of  which  God,  by 
a  gratuitous  act  of  His  grace,  declared  them  righteous 
through  the  redemption  that  was  in  Christ,  whom  God 
had  set  forth  as  a  propitiatory  sacrifice  for  sin.  By  this 
new  and  divine  method  of  declaring  sinful  men  righteous 
in  His  sight,  St.  Paul  taught  that  God  set  them  free  at 
once  from  the  curse  of  His  law,  gave  peace  to  their  uneasy 
consciences,  and  restored  them  to  the  joy  of  His  favour. 
St.  Paul's  message  had  in  those  days,  and  has  still,  this 
much  at  least  to  recommend  it,  that  it  pushed  forward 
into  prominence,  as  its  very  earliest  gift,  a  liberation  of 
the  conscience  from  that  unatoned  guilt  against  which 
men  had  hitherto  struggled  in  vain  to  be  free.  Always 
that  memory  of  a  sinful  past  had  haunted  earnest  minds  ; 
always  that  fear  of  penalty  had  paralyzed  their  efforts  to 
be  good  and  chilled  their  hope  in  God.  No  theory  of  evil 
as  merely  another  form  of  good  could  shake  the  plain 
testimony  of  the  human  conscience  affirming  guilt.  Sacri- 
fice and  lustration  had  proved  ineffectual  to  lift  off  this 
dread  of  a  nemesis  to  come.  Like  a  gravestone  on  every 
soul  dead  in  its  sins  lay  the  sentence  of  God's  avenging 
justice  ;  for  while  neither  Kature  nor  philosophy  availed 
to  reveal  any  way  of  j  ustification  for  a  sinner,  the  wrath 
of  God  was  sufficiently  revealed  against  all  ungodliness 
and  unrighteousness  of  men  to  put  them  beyond  excuse, 
and  fill  them  at  times  with  soul-shaking  alarms  for  the 
"  indignation  and  wrath,  tribulation  and  anguish/'  which 


8  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

overliung  "  every  soul  of  man  that  did  evil."  Amid 
heathen  darkness  more  dimly — in  the  twilight  of  Judaism 
more  vividly — men  everywhere  felt  that  the  Powers  on 
high  were  angry.  It  was,  therefore,  a  most  welcome 
feature  of  Paul's  message  from  God,  that  to  men  in  their 
sins,  as  they  were  (if  they  would  but  repent),  He  offered 
pardon  and  gratuitous  acceptance  as  righteous  persons  in 
Christ  Jesus. 

This,  however,  was  but  the  first  half  of  the  divine  word. 
The  same  faith  which  identifies  a  sinful  man  with  Christ, 
so  that  he  becomes  justified  in  Him  through  His  death, 
brings  to  that  man  divine  life  as  well.  To  be  in  Christ 
(Paul  taught)  is  to  be  made  a  new  creature,  alive  with  a 
new  life,  thenceforth  no  longer  the  willing  slave  of  sin, 
but  free  to  serve  God  as  His  adopted  child,  inspired  by 
His  Holy  Spirit.  If,  while  wicked  men  were  still  God's 
enemies,  God  reconciled  them  through  the  death  of  His 
Sod,  how  much  more,  now  that  He  has  reconciled  them 
to  friendship,  will  He  go  on  to  save  these  friends  of  His 
by  His  Son's  life !  Before  the  man  who  hears  such  words, 
who  accepts  Christ  as  his  Quickener,  there  opens  out  a 
prospect  of  ultimate  deliverance  from  everything  bad,  or 
base,  or  unworthy,  of  final  emancipation  into  the  glorious 
freedom  and  felicity  of  the  children  of  God.  God  will  not 
do  His  work  by  halves.  Having  taken  up  our  case  so 
strongly.  He  will  spare  nothing  now  for  the  sake  of  men 
for  whom  He  has  already  sacrificed  His  Son.  The  message 
grows  more  wonderful  and  glorious  as  it  rolls  along. 
Starting  from  justification,  it  ends  in  glory.  It  is  good 
news  at  its  beginning  ;  better  news  at  its  close.  At  first 
it  is  the  word  of  God  cancelling  guilt ;  by-and-by  it  be- 
comes also  the  power  of  God  unto  the  complete  and  ever- 
lasting salvation  of  fallen  humanity  in  soul  and  body.  It 
ends  at  once  in  a  challenge  and  a  triumph.     ^'  Who  shall 


AT  ROME  ALSO.  9 

lay  anything  to  the  charge  of  God's  chosen  ones  ?  "  "In 
all  things  we  are  more  than  conquerors  !  " 

This  is  that  word  of  good  tidings  which  St.  Paul  felt  he 
could  carry  without  discredit  to  the  capital  seat  of  empire. 
Already  he  had  proved  it  upon  the  Greeks ;  and  Corinth, 
where  he  wrote,  was  evidence  that  "  the  foolishness  of 
God  "  had  shown  itself  "  wiser  than  men."  Now  he  was 
ready  to  prove  it  also  upon  the  Eomans  ;  persuaded  that, 
as  the  weakness  of  God,  it  would  turn  out  stronger  than 
men. 

The  power  which  resides  in  a  word,  or  which  operates 
through  a  word,  requires  one  (and  no  more  than  one)  con- 
dition for  its  operation — it  must  be  believed.  Old  Eli, 
bowed  with  the  weight  of  years,  sat  in  the  city  gate  of 
Shiloh,  when  a  message  came  to  him  which  had  in  it  a 
power  of  death.  But  if  Eli  had  not  believed  the  fatal 
tidings  of  that  Benjamite  who  professed  to  report  the 
disastrous  issue  of  the  day's  engagement,  Eli  would  not 
have  fallen  dead  in  a  fit  by  the  side  of  the  gate.  The 
message  which  another  Benjamite  spoke  at  midnight  to 
the  Roman  jailer  had  in  it,  on  the  contrary,  a  power  of 
spiritual  life.  But  if  that  jailer  had  not  received  Paul's 
record  of  God  concerning  His  Son,  no  life  could  have 
visited  his  rude,  dark,  heathen  soul.  Faith  is  no  excep- 
tional demand  on  the  Gospel's  part.  It  is  the  condition 
of  all  power  which  comes  by  word,  whether  it  be  a  word 
that  teaches  or  a  word  that  commands.  Though  the 
power  of  God,  operating  through  His  Gospel,  is  an  excep- 
tional power,  since  it  is  the  direct  energy  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  which  quickens  dead  souls,  yet  God  has  chosen  this 
particular  vehicle  of  speech  for  His  life-giving,  saving, 
spiritual  energy,  and  having  chosen  it.  He  respects  its 
ordinary  laws.  Salvation  must  come  by  faith,  because 
faith  comes  by  hearing,  and  hearing  by  the  Word  of  God. 


lO  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

It  is,  therefore,  to  him  only  who  believes  its  message, 
but  to  every  one  who  does  believe  it,  that  the  Gospel 
proves  to  be  God's  power  unto  salvation.  Faith  on  the 
part  of  the  hearer  is  that  which  must  liberate  the  divine 
might  which  resides  in  the  word  ready  to  operate. 

We  have  in  this  law  of  the  Gospel's  operation  a  ready 
explanation,  if  at  any  time  we  feel  surprised  that  the 
Gospel  seems  to  effect  so  little.  It  has  been  a  long  while 
in  the  world  since  St.  Paul  wrote ;  yet  ours  is  far  from 
being  a  saved  world.  It  has  been  told  to  the  men  of  our 
own  generation  in  this  land,  till  not  a  few  have  grown 
quite  weary  with  hearing  it ;  yet  everywhere  there  is  a 
cry  in  the  air  that  vice  spreads  and  society  grows  not  a 
whit  wholesomer.  But  it  is  no  fair  reproach  to  any  sal- 
vation which  comes  by  word  that  it  fails  to  benefit  people 
who  do  not  believe  it.  The  reproach  would  only  be  fair 
if  you  could  show  that  any  man  had  honestly  accepted 
this  message,  and  lived  upon  the  faith  of  it,  yet  for  all 
that  had  been  none  the  better  for  it.  No  enemy  of  Chris- 
tianity, who  knew  what  he  was  saying,  has  ever  been  bold 
enough  to  allege  that.  Look  how  it  has  been  with  our- 
selves. This  Gospel  of  gratuitous  justification  and  spiritual 
renewal  in  Christ  Jesus  has  been  familiar  to  every  one  of 
us  from  childhood.  In  every  conceivable  form  of  words 
it  has  been  addressed  to  us.  By  words  of  the  Holy  Book 
and  words  to  explain  the  Book — by  words  spoken  and 
words  printed — by  hymns  learned  in  childhood  at  parents' 
knee  and  sermons  from  a  hundred  pulpits.  In  fact,  it 
has  as  good  as  saturated  the  whole  religious,  and  literary, 
and  social  atmosphere  we  live  in ;  till  we  fancy  there  is 
nothing  in  this  world  we  know  so  well — no  story  ever 
told  which  has  been  worn  so  threadbare.  All  your  days, 
therefore,  one  might  say  to  any  unbelieving  person,  you 
have  been  in  ceaseless  contact  with  the  saving  strength 


AT  ROME  ALSO.  I  I 

of  God.  A  divine  force  has  been  round  about  you,  toucli- 
iug  you,  playing  on  your  nature  through  that  Gospel 
story  as  a  vehicle,  a  force  competent  to  deliver  you  from 
sin,  and  intended  to  do  so.  Is  it  impertinent  now  to  ask. 
Has  it  saved  you  ?  What  appreciable  good  effect  can 
you  trace  to  it  ?  Have  you  the  peace  of  forgiveness  from 
God?  Have  you  the  Spirit  of  Christ?  Are  you  set  free 
from  the  love  of  sin,  or  transformed  in  temper  and  tastes 
into  child-like  resemblance  to  the  Heavenly  Father  ? 
These  are  the  things  which  the  Gospel  does  when  it  is 
God's  power  to  the  salvation  of  a  man ;  and  it  is  fair  to 
ask  if  such  effects  have  become  visible  in  you.  Shall  we 
blame  the  Gospel  if  they  have  not  ?  Is  it  then  grown 
weak  ?  It  claims  to  wrap  up  within  it  the  highest  divine 
energy.  Is  that  a  delusive  boast  ?  Stop  a  moment. 
Before  you  call  the  Gospel  weak,  ask  how  you  have 
received  it.  The  faith  which  has  to  be  exercised  about 
any  word  varies  with  the  nature  of  the  word.  This  word 
from  God  is  spiritual,  and  it  asks  not  an  intellectual  but 
a  spiritual  faith,  a  moral  submission,  a  religious  surrender 
of  the  whole  being  to  the  influence  of  the  truth  told  and 
the  authority  of  the  Person  speaking.  Have  you  yielded 
it  that  sort  of  faith — the  only  sort  which,  in  a  case  like 
this,  is  faith  ?  You  hold  all  Christian  teaching  for  true, 
and  you  hear  it  with  respect ;  but  have  you  accepted  of 
God's  method  for  your  justification,  and  welcomed  God's 
Spirit  into  you  for  your  regeneration  ?  To  lay  your  con- 
science and  religious  affections  open  to  the  free  entrance 
and  fair  play  upon  them  of  God's  loving  words  in  His 
Son  is  not  an  accidental  of  Christianity ;  it  is  essential. 
It  is  on  your  side  the  indispensable  condition  of  any 
energy  put  forth  on  you  by  God  for  your  salvation.  Blame 
not  the  Gospel,  therefore,  but  yourselves.  The  power  is 
there,  as  much  there  for  you  as  for  others.     But  it  lies 


1  2  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

dormant  because  hitherto  you  have  received  God's  message 
as  a  word  only,  not  a  power ;  because  you  are  careful  to 
keep  it  outside  of  your  real  life,  in  the  region  of  your 
notions,  opinions,  or  professions,  but  will  not  let  it  in 
among  those  everlasting  verities  which  practically  form 
you  and  rule  you  and  animate  you  from  hour  to  hour, 
which  are  the  ever-present  companions  of  your  thoughts, 
the  springs  of  your  desires,  and  the  lords  of  your  will. 
Do  this,  and  see  if  the  Gospel  of  Christ  leave  you  long  an 
unaltered,  unbettered  man.  Do  this,  and  if  it  develop  no 
power  of  salvation  within  you  which  you  can  call  divine 
— then  be  ashamed  of  it  for  a  weak  pretender,  like  the 
other  systems  in  the  world  which  profess  great  things 
and  achieve  little ;  then,  but  not  till  then.  It  is  the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation — only  you  must  do  it  the 
justice  to  believe  it. 


(     13     ) 


CHAPTER  II. 
RIGHTEOUSNESS  BY  FAITH. 

"For  therein  is  revealed  a  righteousness  of  God  by  faith  unto  faith :  as  it 
is  written,  But  the  righteous  shall  live  by  faith." — KoM.  i.  17. 

ri'^HESE  words  are  to  be  read  in  close  connection  with  those 
■^  of  the  preceding  verse.  The  two  verses  form  a  single 
compact  sentence  which  may  be  put  thus :  "  The  Gospel  is 
God's  power  to  salvation  to  every  believer,  because  in  it 
God's  righteousness  by  faith  is  revealed  to  faith."  The 
Gospel  which  Paul  was  not  ashamed  to  preach  even  at 
Rome  is  a  divine  power  able  to  save  all  sorts  of  men ;  to 
save  them,  of  course,  from  their  sins  and  to  an  eternal 
life  with  God.  It  has  this  saving  power,  because  in  it 
there  is  revealed  God's  own  righteousness.  And  it  exerts 
its  saving  power  on  believers  only,  because  the  righteous- 
ness which  it  does  reveal  is  one  "  from  faith  to  faitli." 

So  put,  the  whole  sentence  forms,  as  every  student  of  this 
Epistle  knows,  its  fundamental  proposition  or  thesis;  to  the 
explanation,  proof,  and  enforcement  of  which  the  doctrinal 
portion  of  the  letter  is  devoted.  In  no  other  portion  of 
St.  Paul's  writings  does  he  so  carefully  lay  down  at  the 
outset  what  he  is  about  to  establish.  Nowhere  else  dees 
he  so  rigorously  carry  on  a  logical  proof  of  his  main  pro- 
position throughout  an  entire  treatise.  I  may  add, 
that  nowhere  else  does  he  set  himself  so  expressly  to 
explain  in  what  the  Gospel  actually  consists — that  is,  the 


14  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

essential  trutlis  lying  at  tlie  heart  of  the  Christian  revela- 
tion. It  is  to  be  expected,  therefore,  that  a  proposition 
of  such  consequence  will  be  very  carefully  and  accurately 
worded  ;  that  its  terms  will  be  employed  in  their  most 
strict  and  technical  Christian  sense;  and  that  every  thin  o- 
for  the  right  understanding  of  the  sentence  must  turn 
upon  a  correct  definition  of  its  language. 

Before  we  can  arrive,  therefore,  at  the  chief  ideas  which 
are  tied  up  compendiously  in  this  sentence  we  must  first  try 
to  reach  the  correct  sense  of  its  principal  words.  The  study 
of  these,  in  fact,  will  conduct  us  of  itself  to  the  ideas. 

(i.)  The  most  characteristic  and  weighty  expression, 
of  course,  is  GocVs  righteousness,  the  revelation  of  which 
makes  the  Gospel  to  be  a  saving  power.*  Perhaps 
the  first  idea  to  strike  any  one  on  hearing  this  phrase, 
"the  righteousness  of  God,"  would  be  that  it  described 
an  attribute  of  the  divine  character.  It  is  the  foundation 
of  Jehovah's  judicial  sovereignty  that  He  is  just  (or  right- 
eous) in  all  His  ways.  His  acts  or  decisions  are  always 
in  conformity  with  His  moral  nature ;  and  His  nature  is 
in  perfect  harmony  with  eternal  and  absolute  rectitude. 
Unquestionably,  this  ground  character  of  Godhead  is  the 

*  There  are  unfortunately  two  English  words  in  use  for  the  one  Greek 
word  everywhere  used  by  St.  Paul.  Pirst  we  have  the  root  word,  just  ; 
and  this  yields  us  the  most  complete  set  of  expressions.  Thus  :  The  just 
man  is  he  whom  God  justifies.  By  that  divine  act  of  justification  the  man 
is  declared  to  possess  justice  in  the  sight  of  God.  So  our  fathers  would 
have  said.  Only  it  unfortunately  happens  that  we  cannot  now  use  justice 
in  this  sense.  Formerly  it  was  good  Engli.sh  to  do  so  ;  but  now  justice 
has  come  to  mean  only  a  virtue  of  character,  and  not  that  obedience  to 
commands  which  justifies  from  blame.  Hence  we  have  to  borrow  another 
word  and  say  "righteousness."  There  would  be  no  harm  in  this  if  we 
could  run  this  word,  like  the  other,  through  all  the  forms  we  need.  But 
we  cannot.  We  cannot  well  say,  for  example.  The  righteous  man  is  he 
whom  God  calls  rir/ldeous ;  we  require  to  substitute  the  phrase,  "whom 
God  justifies." 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  BY  FAITH.  1 5 

only  basis  on  which  men  can  put  their  trust  in  Him. 
We  could  have  no  confidence  in  an  unequal,  unfair,  or 
inconsistent  judge.  But  if  we  examine  St.  Paul's  words 
a  little,  we  shall  see  that  it  cannot  be  this  he  is  speaking 
of.  For  one  thing,  the  justice  of  the  Most  High  was  no 
novelty  which  we  needed  a  Gospel  to  reveal  to  us.  All 
men  knew  that  by  nature  ;  or  if  they  did  not,  the  Hebrew 
Law  had  long  ago  revealed  it.  For  another  thing,  a  reve- 
lation of  God's  justice  would  have  been  no  Gospel  for 
sinners — no  "  good  tidings  of  great  joy  "  to  any  people. 
It  w^ould  simply  have  been  another  exhibition  of  that 
righteous  wrath  of  God  against  sin  which  had  already 
been  revealed  from  heaven,  and  which  St.  Paul  goes  ou 
to  speak  of  as  the  antithesis  or  opposite  of  the  Gospel. 
Besides,  the  justice  which  belongs  to  the  nature  of  God 
does  not  depend  (as  this  is  said  to  do)  on  human  faith. 
It  does  not  spring  out  of  men's  believing.  Above  all, 
such  a  sense  of  the  phrase  yields  no  meaning  at  all 
when  you  apply  it  to  the  quotation  from  Habakkuk : 
"The  man  who  is  righteous  (or  just)  by  his  faith,  shall 
live."  For  here  it  is  plainly  man's  righteousness  which 
is  spoken  of — a  righteousness  which  belongs  to  the  just 
man,  not  to  God.  In  whatever  sense,  therefore,  the  right- 
eousness revealed  by  the  Gospel  can  be  called  God's,  it 
certainly  must  describe,  not  an  attribute  of  the  divine 
nature,  but  some  condition  or  relation  in  which  men 
themselves  are  made  to  stand. 

To  find  out  what  that  is  we  must  look  forward  to  a 
passage  of  this  present  letter  to  Rome,  in  which  St.  Paul 
falls  back  upon  his  thesis  and  repeats  it  in  ampler  and 
more  explicit  language.  The  passage  occurs  near  the 
end  of  the  third  chapter.*  At  the  twenty-first  verse 
he  there  proceeds  to  sum  up  the  results  of  his  long  dis- 

*  iii.  21-26. 


1 6  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

cussion.  "  Now,"  says  he,  "  apart  from  the  Law,  God's 
righteousness  has  been  manifested" — exactly  as  here  in 
i.  17  he  had  said  it  is  "revealed"  in  the  Gospel,  so  that 
the  two  passages  are  quite  parallel.  Then  he  goes  on  to 
define  or  describe  it.  It  consists  (iii.  24)  in  every  sinner 
who  believes  "  being  justified  freely  by  God's  grace  through 
the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus."  Again  (iii.  26) 
it  is  defined  once  more :  it  consists  in  God's  "  being  just 
and  the  Justifier  of  him  who  believes  in  Jesus."  On  our 
side,  it  implies  our  being  justified  when  we  believe ;  on 
God's  side,  it  implies  His  justly  justifying  us  when  we 
believe.  It  is  not,  therefore,  an  abstract  virtue  inherent 
in  the  Deity;  but  it  has  to  do  with  a  justified  condition 
into  which  it  pleases  God  to  put  men — such  men  as 
believe  in  the  Redeemer.  In  this  sense  of  the  word, 
justice  or  righteousness  belongs,  not  to  the  judge  who 
condemns  or  acquits,  but  to  the  judged,  who  are  acquitted 
and  not  condemned.  A  judge  is  righteous  (or  just)  who 
pronounces  a  true  sentence  upon  the  merits  of  the  case, 
whether  he  acquit  or  condemn.  In  this  sense  alone  can 
God  be  righteous  or  possess  righteousness.  But  the  ac- 
cused subject  who  stands  to  be  judged  is  righteous  (or 
just)  only  when  the  sentence  passed  on  him  turns  out 
to  be  one  of  acquittal.  This  is  the  sense  in  which  a  man 
may  be  righteous,  or  possessed  of  righteousness. 

The  Pauline  use  of  the  word,  then,  as  we  interpret  him, 
is  this  :  Righteousness  is  the  condition  of  any  man's  being 
justified,  vindicated  in  law,  or  acquitted  of  blame,  by  his 
righteous  Judge.  And  the  characteristic  of  the  Gospel — 
its  joy  and  glory — lies  here,  that  it  has  revealed  how  that 
condition  of  our  justification  has  been  reached.  It 
shows  by  what  means  God  may  be  just  and  yet  justify 
the  sinner.  We  are  quite  familiar  with  this  sense  of 
justification  in  ordinary   human  life.     It  is   the   simple 


KIGHTEOUSNESS  BY  FAITfl.  I  7 

opposite  of  condemnation ;  as  our  Lord  said,  "  By  thy 
words  thou  shalt  be  justified,  and  by  thy  words  thou  shalt 
be  condemned."  And  there  have  never  been  wanting 
plenty  of  people  who  (like  a  certain  man  in  the  Gospel) 
are  "  willing  to  justify  themselves."  Any  one  who  is  mis- 
represented or  calumniated  may  succeed  in  clearing  him- 
self from  blame  by  a  justification  of  his  conduct.  Nay,  so 
far  as  regards  condemnation  at  the  bar  of  earthly  justice 
or  of  human  opinion,  there  are  some  righteous  men 
who  can  defy  their  accusers  to  convict  them  of  open 
guilt,  that  is,  who  may  claim  to  be  justified  from  sin.  But 
to  be  just  in  Heaven's  esteem,  to  claim  acquittal  at  the 
Divine  Bar,  to  have  a  righteousness  which  God  can 
recognize  and  on  the  footing  of  which  God  will  justify  a 
man — this  was,  when  Paul  wrote,  a  new  thing  on  the 
earth.  It  had  been  foretold,  foreshadowed,  and  looked 
forward  to;  but  it  had  never  before  beeif  revealed.  It 
needed  to  be  revealed,  in  the  proper  sense  of  a  divine 
or  supernatural  making  known  of  what  is  concealed ;  for 
of  its  own  nature  it  was  absolutely  undiscoverable.  The 
question,  "How  shall  man  be  just  with  God?"  was  for 
man  an  unanswerable  question.  Human  consciousness  was 
always  a  consciousness  of  sin.  Or  if,  in  any  particular, 
any  man  could  dare  to  say  (like  Paul  himself  in  one  place), 
"I  am  conscious  of  no  fault  in  myself,"  he  had  to  add, 
with  the  humility  of  ignorance^  "Yet  am  I  not  hereby 
justified;  but  He  that  judgeth  me  is  the  Lord."  Every 
human  law  (like  the  law  of  Exod.  xxiii.  7)  forbids  a 
judge  to  "justify  the  wicked" — to  discharge  a  criminal 
from  the  tribunal  uncondemned.  Yet  this  is  precisely 
what  St.  Paul  declares  that  God  does.  He  "  justifieth  the 
ungodly  "  (Rom.  iv.  5).  There  is  " now  no  condemnation" 
(viii.  i).  How  or  on  what  ground  this  seemingly  unjust 
acquittal  of  sinners  can  proceed  was  a  secret  hid  from 


1 8  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

past  ages,  but  it  is  now  revealed.  Such  a  righteousness 
for  man  as  will  sustain  in  the  case  of  any  one  a  verdict  of 
acquittal  from  "the  righteous  Judge"  is  the  grand  dis- 
covery of  the  Gospel.  By  its  disclosure  of  that  for  the 
trustful  acceptance  of  mankind,  it  becomes  a  message 
with  power  unto  salvation. 

(2.)  We  are  now  in  a  position  to  see  in  what  sense  this 
righteousness  revealed  in  the  Gospel  is  God's.  Man's  it 
certainly  is,  or  must  become,  in  the  sense  of  constituting 
a  ground  on  which  man  may  justly  be  acquitted  of  guilt. 
But  man's,  as  his  own  moral  act,  it  as  certainly  is  not. 
For  it  is  expressly  contrasted  with  what  Paul  called  "mine 
own  righteousness ;"  and  the  Jews  missed  finding  it  just 
because  they  went  about  to  establish  one  of  "  their  own." 
So  far  as  the  personal  acts  of  any  sinner  are  concerned, 
the  whole  argument  of  this  Epistle  and  the  whole  New 
Testament  emphatically  set  aside  the  notion  of  his  ac- 
quittal depending  on  any  righteousness  of  his  own.  The 
Gospel  righteousness,  therefore,  originates  from  God  in  the 
first  instance — is  a  superhuman  and  supernatural  provision 
of  His  grace  which  men  were  so  far  from  being  able  to 
find  or  make,  that  they  could  not  even  imagine  it  till  it 
was  revealed  to  them.  It  is  God's  in  its  inception ;  for 
He  it  was — the  Father  of  all  mercy — who  in  the  beginning, 
when  we  were  "yet  sinners,"  "enemies"  of  His,  and 
"  without  strength,"  "  sent  forth  His  Son,  made  of  a 
woman,  made  under  the  law,"  to  "  condemn  our  sin  in  His 
flesh,"  and  redeem  us  from  the  law's  sentence  of  condem- 
nation. It  is  God's  in  its  achievement ;  for  He  it  was — 
the  Son  of  the  Father — who"in  the~fulness  of  time  "made 
many  righteous  by  His  own  obedience,"  and  "by  His 
blood  justified  "  us  from  all  things,  obliterating  the  writing 
which  accused  us,  and  "  reconciling  us  in  the  body  of 
His  flesh  through  death."     It  is  God's  in  its  revelation ; 


EIGHTEOUSNESS  BY  FAITH.  1 9 

for  He  it  was — the  Holy  Spirit  who  comforts  us  by  His 
teaching — who  first  through  the  Apostles  of  our  Lord 
discovered  it  to  all  nations  for  the  obedience  of  faith. 
Wherefore  "to  God  only  wise,  be  glory  through  Jesus 
Christ  for  ever."  Praised  be  the  wise  and  generous  mercy 
of  the  Father  who  devised ;  praised  be  the  obedience  p.nd 
grace  of  the  Son  whose  mortal  passion  achieved ;  and 
praised  the  comforting  revelation  of  the  Spirit  who  still 
within  our  hearts  makes  known  to  us  this  righteousness 
of  faith  : — God's  righteousness  for  sinful  men  ! 

(3.)  In  the  composite  title  given  by  St.  Paul  to  the 
contents  of  his  Gospel,  there  remains  but  one  more  word 
to  be  explained.  He  calls  it — in  full — "  God's  righteous- 
ness of  (or,  out  of)  faith  ; "  and  this  expression  may  most 
fitly  be  read  as  if  it  were  one  compound  epithet  descriptive 
of  a  single  object.  Each  of  the  parts  of  this  compound  name 
has  its  own  separate  use,  if  one  would  adequately  char- 
acterize what  the  Gospel  reveals  to  us.  It  is  a  "  righteous- 
ness," because  on  it  the  acquittal  of  accused  and  sinful 
men  justly  proceeds.  It  is  "  God's-righteousness,"  because 
provided  by  the  Triune  God  through  the  human  obedience  of 
the  Second  Person.  It  is  "  God's-righteousness-of-faith," 
because,  in  order  to  our  becoming  justified  by  it,  faith  is  the 
solitary  condition.  The  relation  of  Gospel  righteousness 
is  thus  expressed  by  its  very  name,  on  both  sides — toward 
God  and  toward  man.  As  respects  God,  it  is  His^  in  a 
sense  opposed  to  its  being  mine ;  His  as  its  Author, 
Originator,  meritorious  Achiever,  and  proper  Proprietor. 
The  simple  personal  possessive  marks  His  relation  to  it : 
it  is  "  GocVs"  But  as  respects  my  relation  to  it — it  comes 
to  me,  stands  me  in  stead,  is  reckoned  to  me  for  my 
acquittal,  " hy  faith"  in  consequence  (that  is  to  say)  of 
my  believing  in  and  trusting  to  Him.  The  expression, 
"  by  faith,"  stands  exactly  opposed  to  another  often  recur- 


20  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

ring  in  St.  Paul :  "  by  law-works  "  (ef  epjcov  v6/jlou,  iii.  20), 
that  is,  personal  acts  of  obedience,  carrying  with  them 
some  merit  in  God's  sight.  It  is,  of  course,  conceivable 
(though  it  is  practically  impossible)  that  sinful  men 
should  do  something  in  their  own  person  to  clear  or 
j  ustify  themselves  from  guilt — something  to  atone  for  sin, 
or  to  deserve  acquittal.  If  they  could,  that  righteousness 
would  be  their  own — not  another's  in  any  sense ;  not 
God's.  And  it  would  be  a  righteousness  arising  to  them 
out  of  their  own  actions,  "out  of  law- works"  done  by 
them.  In  sharp  contrast  to  this  self-provided  righteous- 
ness stands  the  Gospel  righteousness  provided  by  Another. 
It  comes  to  me,  not  out  of  any  act  or  work  of  mine  by 
which  I  have  justified  myself,  but  out  of  my  reliance  on 
the  act  or  work  of  Another,  by  which  Another  justifies 
me.  Just  because  this  righteousness  is  Another's,  it  can 
only  be  made  available  for  me  by  my  relying  upon  that 
Other  and  accepting  it  as  a  gratuitous  present  from  His 
kindness.  (Cf.  y  Bcopea  ev  "x^^pirt,  Rom.  v.  1 5.)  Because 
it  is  God's,  it  comes  to  me  out  of  faith ;  and  it  is  "  out  of 
faith,  that  it  may  be  by  grace"  (Rom.  iv.  16). 

Thus  it  is  that  the  whole  of  this  composite  title,  "  God's- 
righteousness-by-faith,"  hangs  together  and  receives  one 
consistent  sense.  It  is  at  every  point  the  clear  contrary 
to  "  Man's-righteousness-by-works  ; "  and  accordingly  the 
Apostle's  efforts  through  nearly  three  following  chapters 
are  directed  to  abolish  the  latter,  that  he  may  establish  the 
former  and  shut  us  up  to  accept  of  it.  If  it  can  be  shown 
that  by  the  deeds  of  the  law  can  no  man  be  justified  before 
God,  then  it  will  follow  that  any  justifying  righteousness 
available  for  ns  must  be  a  righteousness  not  ours,  but  God's; 
which  comes  to  our  account,  not  on  our  doing  it,  but  on 
our  trusting  to  it  as  our  Saviour's  deed.  And  it  is  just  such 
a  righteousness  which  in  the  Gospel  is  revealed  unto  us. 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  BY  FAITH.  2  I 

This  discussion  of  tlie  terms  of  the  text  may  appear  to 
some  unduly  long ;  but  there  are  no  words  in  the  peculiar 
vocabulary  of  Christianity  to  which  a  greater  importance 
attaches  than  these.  The  teaching  of  the  New  Testament 
on  the  way  of  salvation  turns  on  them  as  on  a  pivot, 
and  they  issue,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  in  an  urgent 
practical  demand.  Besides,  through  what  has  been  said 
upon  the  words  of  the  text,  we  have  really  reached  to  its 
very  ideas  and  central  meaning.  So  much  so,  that  little 
remains  to  do  now  but  in  a  few  words  to  recapitulate  the 
thoughts  which  have  emerged  as  we  went  along. 

Let  us  see  how  these  come  out. 

(i.)  A  message  which  pretends  (as  the  Gospel  does)  to 
have  the  power  of  saving  sinful  men  must  show  how  men 
are  to  be  justified  or  acquitted  by  God.  The  very  first 
fact  to  confront  any  would-be  deliverer  of  human  beings 
is,  that  we  are  all  guilty  and  deserve  to  perish.  We  are 
under  sentence  for  sin.  We  are  righteously  condemned 
to  die.  Till  you  can  lift  off  from  the  human  conscience 
that  appalling,  remorseful  load  of  guilt,  with  its  paralyzing 
sense  of  hopelessness,  and  its  exasperating  fear  of  the 
blessed  God  as  an  incensed  avenging  Judge,  you  have  done 
nothing — nothing  effectual — for  any  earnest  religious 
nature.  To  reverse  the  doom  of  the  race,  cancel  our 
sentence,  and  reinstate  us  in  the  approval  of  Heaven,  is 
the  very  alphabet  of  our  salvation. 

(2.)  Only  some  supernatural  revelation  could  do  this. 
Many  things  men  could  and  did  find  out,  but  atonement 
for  guilt,  or  a  good  and  just  cause  why  any  one  who  had 
once  broken  the  law  of  God  should  not  die  but  live,  as  if 
he  had  kept  it — this  no  man  could  find.  If  there  never 
had  come  any  other  true  message  sent  down  by  a  miracle 
from  above  or  spoken  by  the  very  voice  of  God,  this  must 
be  such  a  message.     How  can  I  trust  the  clever  guesses 


2  2  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

of  any  man  about  the  terms  on  which  the  Almighty  will 
acquit  me  of  my  sin  ?     He  must  speak  and  tell  me. 

(3.)  The  way  of  justifying  sinners  which  this  heavenly 
message  does  reveal  is  by  a  righteousness  of  God's  own 
providing.  Obedience  is  rendered  to  magnify  the  broken 
Law ;  its  sentence  of  death  is  satisfied ;  guilt  is  abolished 
by  atonement;  a  just  basis  for  pardon  is  laid: — but  the 
doing  of  all  this  is  not  ours,  it  is  God's.  It  is  a  righteous- 
ness accomplished  for  each  man,  not  by  himself,  but  by 
Another ;  by  no  sinful  man,  yet  by  a  Man  ;  by  a  Man, 
and  yet  by  God.  The  miracle  of  the  incarnation  introduced 
into  our  race  a  Divine  Actor  whose  obedient  passion 
solves  the  problem  of  sin,  and  achieves  the  task  of  right- 
eousness. On  that  flesh  which  bore  the  "likeness  of 
sinful  flesh "  (Rom.  viii.  3),  and  stood  "  for  sin,"  "  God 
condemned  sin  "  till  there  was  ''  no  more  condemnation." 
The  flesh  of  our  Rescuer  "  was  delivered  over  "  indeed  to 
death  for  the  expiation  of  "our  oSences,"  but  it  "was 
raised  again"  from  death  "because  of  our  justification" 
(iv.  25). 

It  follows  from  the  nature  of  this  revealed  ground  of 
our  acquittal  that — 

(4.)  We  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  build  our  hopes  on 
it.  To  take  God  at  His  word,  and  rely  on  His  revealed 
righteousness  as  the  basis  of  our  acceptance  and  forgive- 
ness becomes,  from  the  simple  necessity  of  the  case,  our 
one  way  to  peace.  When  the  message  is  sent  that  God 
has  executed  a  work  on  the  footing  of  which  He  is  willing 
to  acquit  and  j  ustify  us  from  our  sins,  it  is  plain  that  we 
have  nothing  left  us  but  to  believe  it,  and  act  henceforth 
on  the  faith  of  it.  Such  a  righteousness,  being  Another's 
work,  must  be  (so  far  as  we  are  concerned)  a  righteoicsncss 
to  he  trusted  to — a  righteousness  of  faith. 

Here,  then,  we  reach  the  last  thought,  which  is  really  the 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  BY  FAITH.  23 

point  of  the  whole,  that  to  which  all  tends,  and  by  which 
the  Gospel  reaches  us,  touches  us,  and  pierces  our  heart. 
It  is  this : — 

(5.)  This  message  from  God  in  heaven  about  a  provided 
righteousness  by  reliance  upon  which  we  may  be  justified, 
is  sent  to  us  for  this  very  end — that  ive  should  rely  on  it. 
For  thus  saith  the  Apostle:  "In  the  Gospel  message 
God's  righteousness,  which  is  by  faith,  is  revealed  to 
faith,"  i.e.,  revealed  on  purpose  to  be  trusted  in.  This 
benevolent  and  serious  design  of  God  in  revealing  His 
faith-righteousness  makes  this  Gospel  word  a  sword  with 
a  double  edge  to  every  one  among  us.  For  God  did  not 
simply  reveal  His  righteousness  to  His  wide  world — "  to 
the  Jew  first  and  also  to  the  Greek."  He  has  guided  the 
actual  course  of  its  disclosure  along  the  great  lines  of 
history ;  guided  it  to  our  shores ;  guided  it  down  the 
current  of  our  ancestral  generations  ;  guided  it  in  spoken 
and  written  words  to  our  door,  to  our  eye  and  ear,  to  our 
mind  and  spirit.  To  us  He  has  as  literally  and  pointedly 
revealed  it  as  if,  in  our  secret  closet,  God's  voice  from 
heaven  had  spoken  to  each  one  by  name,  disclosing,  for 
our  individual  salvation,  a  secret  concealed  from  every 
other  man — this  namely,  that  Christ's  work  is  a  righteous- 
ness for  you,  by  which,  if  you  trust  to  it,  you  shall  be 
justified.  His  purpose  in  telling  you  that  ?  His  meaning  ? 
His  wish  ?  That  you — you  yourself — should  believe  it 
for  yourself  and  be  saved  !  Oh  !  the  unspeakable  stress  of 
the  divine  heart  against  our  own,  when  He,  who  passes 
sentence  on  sin,  who  also  died  to  put  sin  away,  comes 
right  up  against  each  with  this  personal  message,  that,  if 
we  will  only  lean  on  His  righteous  work,  we  shall  live. 
No  one  can  mistake  the  meaning  of  that  communication. 
You  may  refuse,  but  you  cannot  misunderstand,  God.  He 
means  you  to  put  your  trust  in  the  ground  of  acquittal 


24  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

revealed  to  you.  He  means  you  to  be  saved  thereby.  To 
no  soul  of  man  among  us  is  this  way  of  pardon  made 
known  for  a  mockery,  to  tantalize  with  unattainable 
desire.  It  is  revealed  to  faith ^  with  a  serious  call  that  we 
would  let  it  in  and  fasten  our  trust  upon  it ;  that  we 
would  abandon  all  other  reason  for  hoping  in  the  divine 
mercy,  and  would  hope  to  be,  nay,  trust  to  be,  nay,  con- 
fidently count  on  being,  pardoned,  acquitted,  justified, 
in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  for  the  sake  of 
His  righteous  work. 


(     25     ) 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  PAGANISM. 

"  For  the  wrath  of  God  is  revealed  from  heaven  against  all  ungodliness  and 
unrighteousness  of  men,  who  hold  down  the  truth  in  unrighteousness  ;  because 
that  which  may  be  known  of  God  is  manifest  in  them  ;  for  God  manifested  it 
unto  them.  For  the  invisible  things  of  him  since  the  creation  of  the  world 
are  clearly  seen,  being  perceived  through  the  things  that  are  made,  even  his 
everlasting  power  and  divinity ;  that  they  may  be  without  excuse :  because 
that,  knowing  God,  they  glorified  him  not  as  God,  neither  gave  thanks  ;  but 
became  vain  in  their  reasonings,  and  their  senseless  heart  was  darkened. 
Professing  themselves  to  be  wise,  they  became  fools,  and  changed  the  glory 
of  the  incorruptible  God  for  the  likeness  of  an  image  of  corruptible  man,  and 
of  birds,  and  fourfooted  beasts,  and  creeping  things.  Wherefore  God  gave 
them  up  in  the  lusts  of  their  hearts  unto  uncleanness,  that  their  bodies  should 
be  dishonoured  among  themselves  :  for  that  they  exchanged  the  truth  of  God 
for  a  lie,  and  worshipped  and  served  the  creature  rather  than  the  Creator, 
who  is  blessed  for  ever.  Amen.  For  this  cause  God  gave  them  up  unto  vile 
passions  :  for  their  women  changed  the  natural  use  into  that  which  is  against 
nature  :  and  likewise  also  the  men,  leaving  the  natural  use  of  the  woman, 
burned  in  their  lust  one  toward  another,  men  with  men  working  unseemliness, 
and  receiving  in  themselves  that  recompense  of  their  error  which  was  due. 
And  even  as  they  refused  to  have  God  in  their  knowledge,  God  gave  them  up 
unto  a  reprobate  mind,  to  do  those  things  which  are  not  fitting  ;  being  filled 
with  all  unrighteousness,  wickedness,  covetousness,  maliciousness ;  full  of  envy, 
murder,  strife,  deceit,  malignity  ;  whisperers,  backbiters,  hateful  to  God,  inso- 
lent, haughty,  boastful,  inventors  of  evil  things,  disobedient  to  patents,  with- 
out understanding,  covenant-breakers,  without  natural  affection,  unmerciful : 
who,  knowing  the  ordinance  of  God,  that  they  which  practise  such  things  are 
worthy  of  death,  not  only  do  the  same,  but  also  consent  with  them  that 
practise  them." — Eoii.  i.  18-32. 

rPHE  writer  of  these  words  was  Christ's  greatest  witness 
-*-  to  the  ancient  world  of  heathendom.  He  was  the  man 
whom  God  sent  to  assail  the  overgrown  system  of  classical 


26  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

paganism.  To  this  task  he  devoted  the  mighty  labours  of 
his  life ;  and  although,  while  he  lived,  he  might  seem  to 
have  effected  little  (for  it  took  three  centuries  to  develop 
the  results  of  his  work),  yet,  in  fact,  polytheism  never 
recovered  from  the  wound  which  it  sustained  at  the  hands 
of  Paul.  For  all  that,  we  hear  very  little  from  St.  Paul 
about  the  idolatries  of  his  time.  This  passage  has  the  dis- 
tinction of  being  the  only  one  in  which  he  speaks  of  the 
religious  and  moral  condition  of  the  heathen  world  at  any 
length;  almost  the  only  one  in  which  he  speaks  of  its 
heathenism  at  all.  Two  of  his  sermons  reported  in  the 
Acts  were  preached  to  idolaters ;  one  to  rude  rustic  idola- 
ters in  a  Lycaonian  town  ;  the  other  to  cultured  idolaters 
in  the  city  of  Athens.  The  language  which  he  used  on 
both  these  occasions  harmonizes  with  this  passage  and 
throws  on  it  a  helpful  light.  Here,  however,  he  is  writ- 
ing to  a  capital  which,  as  it  had  gathered  into  its  hands 
the  military  and  administrative  power  of  all  civilized 
governments,  so  it  had  provided  a  home  for  the  deities  of 
all  its  subject  lands.  In  Rome's  tolerant  Pantheon,  when 
Paul  wrote,  were  assembled  the  gods  of  every  land.  At 
Ptome,  license  was  accorded  to  the  rites  of  every  form  of 
worship,  however  impure  or  fraudulent.  There,  therefore, 
one  might  conveniently  study  the  latest  results  of  man's 
religious  development,  and  trace  in  the  faith  and  morals 
of  its  vast  heterogeneous  population  what  polytheism  in 
every  shape  had  been  able  to  do  for  mankind.  There  was 
an  appropriateness  in  setting  before  the  Roman  Christians 
so  elaborate  a  picture  as  we  have  here  of  that  mighty 
multiform  paganism  in  the  midst  of  which  they  lived  and 
had  their  being. 

Let  it  be  noticed  with  what  design  the  passage  is  intro- 
duced. In  last  chapter  we  have  discussed  the  words  in 
which  the  Apostle  lays  down  his  theme.     He  is  to  prove 


THE  NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  PAGANISM.  2  7 

that  the  Gospel  of  Christ  has  brought  with  it  a  novel  power 
to  save  men  from  sin,  because  it  reveals  a  way  of  being 
acquitted  from  condemnation  by  simply  believing.  It 
will  prepare  us  for  this  if  he  can  show  that  mankind  at 
large  need  such  a  salvation  to  be  revealed ;  that  they  are 
under  condemnation  for  sin,  and  that  no  existing  religion 
had  succeeded  in  saving  them  from  that  condemnation. 
The  Gospel,  he  says,  reveals  God's  righteousness  by  faith. 
But  there  had  been  a  prior  "  revelation  "  in  the  world  of 
God's  "  wrath  "  against  the  sins  of  men.  Under  that  dis- 
covery of  divine  displeasure  the  whole  world  lay  helpless 
in  its  guilt.  Before  the  apprehension  of  coming  judgment 
from  heaven,  clearly  enough  foreshadowed  already,  the 
whole  race  sat  dumb,  self-condemned,  and  without  hope. 
Prove  that,  and  you  have  proved  the  need  of  a  new  revela- 
tion, if  men  are  to  be  saved  at  all.  Prove  that,  and  you 
prove  that  deliverance  from  the  doom  and  power  of  sin  is 
the  need  of  humanity;  a  need  which  only  God  Himself 
can  supply. 

So  far  as  the  Gentile  or  pagan  world  went,  it  hardly 
needed  proof,  to  any  man  who  lived  in  it,  that  its  moral 
condition  was  infamously  bad.  We  possess  the  most 
abundant  contemporary  evidence  of  this  in  its  literature 
and  its  monuments.  No  scholar  questions  that  the  classical 
nations  of  Paul's  age  were  steeped  in  vice,  socially  dis- 
organized, and  abandoned  to  unnameable  forms  of  personal 
impurity.  No  Christian  in  Eome,  when  Paul's  letter 
reached  it,  but  had  the  evidence  of  this  before  his  eyes. 
These  things  needed  only  to  be  pointed  at.  What  most 
needed  to  be  shown  was  the  connection  between  heathen 
conduct  and  heathen  religion,  and  how,  for  the  faults  of 
both,  the  heathen  must  be  held  responsible.  This  leads 
St.  Paul,  not  simply  to  enumerate  abominable  and  pre- 
valent forms  of  sin,  but  to  trace  the  genesis  of  heathen 


28  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

morals  out  of  heathen  religion,  and  to  establish  the  pro- 
position, that,  both  for  the  primary  religious  declension 
or  apostasy  from  God,  and  for  all  the  frightful  sins  to 
which  it  had  led,  men  were  to  be  condemned  without 
excuse.  The  whole  passage  is  in  truth  a  profound  and 
inspired  sketch  of  what  I  may  call  the  natural  history  of 
heathenism ;  and  as  it  is  the  history  also  of  such  heathenism 
as  still  to  this  hour  faces  the  Church  of  Christ  on  every 
side  of  Christendom,  it  is  by  no  means  a  needless  or 
obsolete  task  to  analyze  the  apostolic  teaching  in  this 
passage. 

St.  Paul's  first  proposition  is,  that  from  the  first  the 
heathen  knew  enough  of  God  from  His  works  to  render  them 
without  excuse  for  not  luorshipping  Him. 

The  testimony  of  Nature  to  God  was  a  familiar  thought 
to  St.  Paul,  for  he  uses  it,  as  he  does  here,  both  in  his 
sermon  at  Lystra  and  in  his  sermon  at  Athens.  The 
Divine  Being  in  His  divine  attributes  is,  of  course,  person- 
ally and  essentially  invisible.  .  Yet  He  has  impressed  so 
much  of  Himself  upon  the  visible  creation  that  His  own 
invisible  attributes  have  thereby  become  evident  to  the 
intellectual  vision  of  man — no  less  clearly  evident  to  the 
understanding  than  if  they  were  literally  seen  by  the  eye. 
The  primary  attribute  manifested  by  creation  is  the  power 
of  God.  Creation,  indeed,  in  the  strict  and  Biblical  sense 
of  that  term  (I  mean,  making  something  out  of  nothing), 
is  not  a  truth  of  natural  religion.  It  is  the  earliest 
doctrine  of  revelation,  to  be  received  as  an  article  of  faith. 
Yet  in  the  composition  and  organization  of  matter  into 
such  innumerable  forms  of  use,  majesty,  and  loveliness  as 
everywhere  surround  us,  the  world  carries  on  its  front  the 
signature — not  perhaps  of  infinite,  but  at  least — of  supreme 
and  transcendent  might.  But  mere  power,  though  the 
first,  is  neither  the  last  nor  the  best  feature  in  that  char- 


THE  NATUEAL  HISTORY  OF  PAGANISM.  29 

acter  which  He  who  made  the  world  has  left  as  His  mark 
upon  it.  What  St.  Paul  calls  the  "divinity"  of  God, 
means  the  sum  of  His  peculiar  divine  properties,  and  among 
these  Paul  himself  would  perhaps  have  signalized  (as  at 
Lystra  he  did  signalize  it)  the  bountiful  goodness  of  God. 
Nature  bears  witness,  no  doubt,  to  the  severity  as  well  as 
to  the  goodness  of  the  Power  that  is  above.  But  her 
ordinary  processes,  her  faithful  seasons,  her  salutary  pro- 
vision for  the  repair  of  disorder,  her  often  lavish  and 
prodigal  return  to  the  hand  of  diligence,  these  things  tell 
of  One  who  is  slow  to  anger,  but  who  does  good  with  both 
hands  earnestly.  Now,  is  it  true  that  any  candid  and 
reverent  mind  might  learn  so  much  of  God  in  this  way  as 
to  lay  upon  it  the  duty  of  pure  and  grateful  worship  ? 
Nay,  is  it  not  true  that  so  much  as  this  has  actually  been 
known  by  men  who  had  no  book  to  rea5  in  but  the  book 
of  Nature?  We  find  historical  traces  of  this  primitive 
nature-lesson  about  God  in  all  the  great  polytheisms.  We 
find  behind  the  many  gods  a  recognition  of  one  supreme 
and  remoter  God.  We  find  that  the  further  back  we  can 
track  pagan  faiths,  the  simpler  and  purer  they  appear 
to  become.  We  find  the  strongest  testimonies  to  God's 
unity  and  to  His  attributes,  with  a  ritual  comparatively 
pure,  in  the  oldest  sacred  books  of  the  heathen,  in  the 
Vedas,  for  example,  and  in  the  earliest  classics  of  China. 
Even  under  a  later  and  more  developed  polytheism,  the 
tendency  of  the  deepest  and  most  unbiassed  thinkers  has 
been  towards  a  truer  conception  of  God  than  the  popular 
one.  These  things  afibrd  support  to  the  Apostle's  funda- 
mental position,  that  Nature  has  always  told  enough  of  its 
Maker  to  the  intelligence  of  man  to  make  him  inexcusable 
if  he  did  not  pay  to  the  One  True  God  the  fitting  tribute 
of  adoring  praise  and  affectionate  gratitude. 

But,  secondly,  the  Apostle  declares  that  the  heathen  have 


30  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOKDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

culpaUy  repressed  and  hindered  from  its  just  influence  the 
truth  which  they  did  know  respecting  God.  He  traces 
polytheistic  and  idolatrous  worship  to  its  root. 

(l.)  Its  first  origin  he  finds  in  a  refusal  to  walk  honestly 
by  such  light  as  Nature  afforded.  For  this  primary  step 
in  the  very  old  and  very  fatal  path  of  religious  declension 
(a  path  trodden  by  the  earliest  fathers  of  our  existing 
races  in  days  long  antecedent  to  the  dawn  of  history) 
men  could  excuse  themselves  under  no  plea  of  ignorance. 
As  yet,  false  divinities  had  not  been  invented.  Cruel 
theologies  had  not  become  traditional.  The  large,  fair 
page  of  a  fresh  young  world  lay  all  before  them,  with  no 
misleading  glosses,  and  from  it  was  reflected  the  blessed 
face  of  a  Father  in  heaven.  One  strong  and  just  and  kind. 
Men  with  good  hearts  in  them  would  have  loved  and 
praised  the  God  of  earth  and  heaven.  The  bulk  of  men 
did  not.  They  withheld  from  God  the  righteous  return 
of  honour  and  affection  due  to  Him  for  what  they  really 
knew  of  Him.  They  neither  paid  Him  worship  as  God, 
nor  gave  Him  thanks.  By  thus  refusing  to  let  the  truth 
rule  them  and  work  out  its  legitimate  moral  and  religious 
effects  upon  them,  they  took  the  earliest  step  in  a  swift 
and  easy  apostasy. 

(2.)  The  next  step  followed  surely.  All  such  ^'  holding 
back,"  or  repression  of  acknowledged  truth,  in  unrighteous- 
ness, has  this  for  its  penalty,  that  the  eye  for  truth  itself 
becomes  evil.  So  it  proved.  That  truth  about  God's  real 
nature  and  properties,  which  men  would  not  strive  fairly 
to  express  in  their  worship,  became  obscured.  Vanity  and 
error  entered  into  human  reasonings  on  religion.  The 
relations  of  God  to  His  natural  works  grew  confused. 
Instead  of  the  clear  straightforward  vision  of  an  honest 
heart,  there  came  speculations,  guesses,  fictions,  and 
would-be  wise   inventions   of  the  intellect.      More   and 


THE  NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  PAGANISM.  3  I 

more  the  great  God  whom  they  would  not  worship  was 
thrust  back  out  of  popular  thought,  and  His  place  taken 
by  a  crowd  of  subordinate  divinities — personified  powers 
of  Nature  or  deified  heroes  of  mythical  history.  God  can 
only  be  rightly  known  so  long  as  He  is  faithfully  served  and 
loved.  The  wicked,  fallen  heart  did  not  think  it  fit  to 
retain  such  a  practical  acquaintance  with  God  as  that; 
and  it  paid  the  penalty  in  the  falsification  of  its  ideas  about 
God,  and  the  consequent  darkening  of  its  whole  moral 
and  religious  life.  "  Men  became  vain  in  their  reasonings, 
and  their  senseless  heart  was  darkened." 

(3.)  The  third  step  downward  was  practical  folly  in 
religion.  Wisdom  rests  on  truth ;  but  when  the  truth  of 
God  has  been  rejected  for  vain  inventions  of  man's  own, 
there  remains — self-conceit,  indeed,  in  a  baseless  pretence 
of<wisdom  (misnamed  philosophy),  but  at  bottom  utter, 
abject  unwisdom — that  deep  incredible  folly  in  the  pro- 
foundest  of  all  human  affairs,  of  which  pagan  idolatry  has 
been  everywhere  the  melancholy  monument.  The  rejec- 
tion of  the  true  God,  whom  His  works  proclaim,  led  to  the 
gradual  banishment  of  Him  out  of  mind,  and  the  eleva- 
tion into  His  room  of  the  personified  powers  of  Nature — 
that  is,  of  His  own  works  erected  into  divinities  in  His 
stead.  Nature-worship  involved  symbol-worship.  Symbol 
worship  rapidly  degenerated  into  sheer  idol- worship.  Then 
the  folly  culminated.  When  men  can  bow  down  to  a 
dead,  dumb  image  of  their  own  making,  and  that  the 
image  of  nothing  nobler  or  greater  than  themselves,  but 
of  a  brute,  as  in  Assyria,  India,  or  Egypt,  or  at  best  of 
another  man,  as  in  Greece;  when  the  quadruped,  the 
fowl,  the  reptile,  is  enshrined  in  the  place  of  God,  revered 
with  the  honours  of  God,  and  besought  for  the  blessings 
of  God,  as  if  its  foul  and  mean  similitude  could  be  any 
likeness  of  the  Eternal  Incorruptible  Eramer  of  all  things, 


32     THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

surely  a  stage  lias  been  reached  in  human  senselessness 
which  degrades  the  worshipper  as  much  as  it  insults  his 
God.  Yet  this  is  but  the  legitimate,  penalty,  as  it  has 
been  the  natural  and  universal  result,  of  that  primeval 
sin  which  refused  to  glorify  as  He  deserved  the  God  whose 
glory  shone  on  man  from  the  works  that  His  fingers 
framed.  It  was  quite  in  the  spirit  of  Paul's  reasoning 
when  Isaiah  pleaded  with  the  besotted  idolater  that  he 
would  open  his  eyes  and  consider  in  his  heart.  In  a  voice 
which  is  not  audible,  and  yet  goes  throughout  the  earth, 
the  heavens  do  proclaim  God's  glory.  In  these  heavens 
which  God  stretched  forth  alone — on  the  earth  which  He 
spread  abroad  by  Himself,  any  man  might  discover  enough 
to  save  him  from  setting  up  the  wood  of  a  graven  image, 
or  praying  to  a  god  that  cannot  save,  if  only  "a  deceived 
heart "  had  not  first  turned  him  aside." 

In  the  third  place,  it  is  in  this  deplorable  and  criminal  per- 
version of  the  truthj  this  religious  apostasy,  that  Paul  finds 
a  key  to  the  personal  and  social  vices  of  heathendom.  It  is 
not  simply  that  the  ancient  pagan  idolatries  were  them- 
selves polluted.  It  is  true  that  they  deified  lust  and 
cruelty  and  fraud ;  true,  that  they  set  up  lewd  and  foul 
images  ;  true,  that  they  enjoined  rites  which  were  bloody 
and  licentious ;  true,  that  to  be  pious  it  was  needful  to  be 
impure.  But  this  was  not  all.  Such  general  abandonment 
to  vice,  till  the  very  distinction  of  good  and  evil  became 
confounded,  was  a  divine  retribution  on  man  for  his  aban- 
donment of  God.  When  the  human  heart  shut  out  the 
self-manifestation  of  the  true  God,  refused  to  know  Him, 
and  worshipped  base  creatures  in  His  room,  it  cut  itself 
ofi"  by  its  own  act  from  the  source  of  moral  light  and 
moral  strength.  A  bad  and  false  religion  must  breed  a 
bad  and  false  character.  The  worshippers  grow  like  their 
divinity.     You  may  call  this  a  law  of  human  nature,  if 


THE  NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  PAGANISM.  2>3 

you  like,  for  it  is  that;  but  it  is  no  less  a  law  of  the 
Divine  Governor  who  made  human  nature ;  and  the  execu- 
tion of  it  may  be  described  as  His  just  deed.  He  it  is 
who  has  decreed,  and  takes  care  that  the  decree  be  exe- 
cuted, that,  where  men  turn  from  Him  to  idols,  their 
moral  vision  shall  become  dark  and  their  moral  taste  false. 
Therefore,  says  St.  Paul,  both  sins  against  personal  purity 
and  sins  against  social  justice  grew  upon  the  pagan  world 
as  a  direct  and  frightful  penalty  for  its  root  sin  of  idola- 
trous departure  from  God.  They  "  changed  the  glory  of 
God  into  an  image  " — "  wherefore,  God  also  gave  them  up 
to  uncleanness" — such  uncleanness  as  dare  not  be  explained 
in  the  clean  ears  of  Christian  men  and  women.  Yes,  "  for 
this  cause,"  he  repeats ;  because  they  exchanged  the  truth 
of  God  for  the  lie  of  creature-worship.  It  was  "  the  recom- 
pense of  their  error  which  was  due."  Moreover,  "  even  as 
they  refused  to  have  God  in  their  knowledge,  so  God  gave 
them  up  unto  a  reprobate  mind,"  to  be  "filled  with  all 
unrighteousness."  The  long  dark  catalogue  of  sins  against 
society,  sins  of  spite  and  fraud  and  heartlessness  and  in- 
humanity, with  which  St.  Paul  closes  his  dismal  picture 
of  heathen  life  as  he  knew  it,  might  readily  be  paralleled, 
no  doubt,  by  scattered  instances  drawn  from  Christian 
lands.  But  it  is  not  the  existence  of  envy,  murder,  or 
deceit  which  is  cast  up  against  heathendom,  but  the  pre- 
valence of  these  and  similar  sins.  It  is  that  heathen 
society  was  full  of  them,  to  an  extent  which  it  is  happily 
difiicult  for  us  to  conceive ;  that  the  moral  sense  of  society 
had  been  by  false  religions  so  debased  that  the  grossest 
sins  awoke  little  notice  and  scarcely  any  censure ;  that,  in 
fact,  men  not  only  did  such  things  but  consented  with 
those  who  practised  them. 

Out   of    this   analysis    of   the    genesis   and   guilt    of 

c 


34  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

heathenism  several  points  arise  which  carry  with  them  a 
practical  lesson. 

In  the  first  place,  St.  Paul  leaves  it  plain  that,  among 
the  heathen,  equally  with  Jews  or  Christians,  the  root  sin 
of  all  and  the  secret  of  guilt  lay  in  wilful  unfaithfulness 
to  such  religious  light  as  they  had.  The  knowledge  of 
God  possessed  by  the  heathen  never  was  to  be  compared 
of  course  with  that  of  men  who  enjoyed  a  positive  super- 
natural revelation ;  still,  it  was  knowledge  of  the  truth,  so 
far  as  it  went,  and  they  were  to  blame  for  repressing  it 
through  unrighteousness.  The  nations  chose  to  forget 
God.  As  generations  passed,  to  be  sure,  the  lies  which 
grew  up  and  became  venerable  covered  out  of  sight  every 
trace  of  that  primitive  but  forgotten  knowledge,  and  made 
it  increasingly  difficult  for  even  the  wisest  heathen  to  find 
the  true  God,  even  supposing  them  to  seek  Him  and  feel 
after  Him.  One's  heart  grows  very  sore  for  those  few 
noble  lovers  of  the  light,  whose  pathetic,  hopeless  yearn- 
ing for  a  purer  faith  amid  the  night  of  paganism,  makes 
the  darkness  in  which  they  dwelt  only  the  more  dark. 
Still,  the  testimony  of  God's  works  to  God  was  not  a  testi- 
mony that  spoke  once  and  then  was  dumb.  From  age  to 
age,  in  the  ears  of  each  new  generation,  the  heavens  and 
the  earth  had  their  old  message  to  repeat.  Nor  could  the 
wise  and  witty  and  ingenious  pagan  races  have  gone  as 
they  did,  from  bad  to  worse,  into  crasser  superstition,  into 
fouler  indulgence,  unless  there  had  been  a  continual  turn- 
ing away  of  the  evil  heart  from  such  faint  light  as  did 
shine,  and  a  continual  loving  and  choosing  of  the  dark. 
The  history  of  heathendom,  old  and  new,  is  a  history  of 
deterioration;  and  the  key  to  that  deterioration  is  the 
prevailing  bias  of  the  human  heart  against  God  as  He 
really  and  truly  is. 

It  ought  never  therefore  to  be  forgotten,  in  the  next 


THE  NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  PAGANISM.  35 

i:)lace,  that  heathenism  is  not  simply  a  misfortune  in  the 
world  for  which  the  bulk  of  men  are  to  be  pitied,  but  not 
blamed.  It  is  a  crime — a  huge,  next  to  world-wide,  age- 
long crime,  with  its  roots  in  a  deep  hatred  of  God,  and 
bearing  a  prolific  crop  of  utterly  inexcusable  and  hideous 
vices.  To  prove  this  is  the  very  end  for  which  the  passage 
is  introduced  by  St.  Paul.  His  object  is  to  exhibit  the 
absolute  necessity  for  the  Gospel  as  a  divine  revelation  of 
a  new  way  to  be  saved.  So  far  as  the  great  majority  of 
our  race — its  pagan  portion — was  concerned,  man  was 
sunk  deep  in  sin,  out  of  which  his  own  religion  could  so 
little  extricate  him,  that  it  was  just  his  own  self-chosen 
religion  of  lies  which  had  plunged  him  deeply  into  it. 
Apart  from  the  Gospel  there  is  neither  salvation  nor  any 
hope  of  it  for  mankind.  Heathenism  at  least  has  none 
to  offer.  We  need  to  remember  this  in  order  to  guard 
ourselves  against  that  shallow  and  very  modern  liberalism 
which  thinks  all  religions  respectable  and  loves  to  extol 
heathen  virtues  as  a  set  off  to  Christian  pretensions.  We 
need  to  remember  it  that  we  may  adequately  admire  the 
patience  of  Eternal  Justice,  which  has  borne  through  long 
ages  with  the  ceaseless  insults  of  polytheism  against  God, 
with  the  self-degradation  of  the  idolater,  and  with  the 
unspeakable  iniquity  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  religion. 
We  need  to  remember  it,  above  all,  that  we  may  have  our 
compassion  more  profoundly  stirred  over  those  vast  popu- 
lations who  to  this  very  hour  sit,  where  they  have  always 
sat,  in  ^'  the  region  of  the  shadow  of  death,"  amid  the 
"gross  darkness"  which  covers  the  nations.  I  say  "our 
compassion."  To  be  convinced  that  the  worship  of  idols 
and  false  gods  is  a  sin  which  loads  the  worshipper  with 
guilt  and  paves  the  way  for  other  sins : — this  does  not 
make  the  heart  less  pitiful  or  less  eager  to  deliver  our 
brothers.     On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  latitudiuarian  theory 


36  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

whicli  tMnks  that  we  liave  a  deal  to  learn  from  paganism, 
and  that  pagans  run  as  fair  a  chance  of  heaven  as  we 
do,  which  really  steels  the  soul  against  pity  and  chills 
missionary  zeal.  No  :  to  feel  that  heathen  rites  are  a 
standing  outrage  against  the  Most  High;  to  burn  for 
His  honour  who  is  dethroned  that  dead  men  and  brute 
beasts  and  fictitious  monsters  may  take  His  place;  to 
have  one's  spirit  stirred,  like  Paul's  own  at  Athens, 
because  the  fairest  and  most  populous  regions  of  the  globe 
are  still  wholly  given  to  idolatry ;  to  realise  that  heathenism 
to-day  means  as  much  as  ever  the  apostacy  of  souls  from 
God,  the  darkening  of  human  hearts,  the  turning  of  men 
into  fools,  the  abandonment  of  whole  races  to  vile  affec- 
tions ;  and  to  remember  with  an  awful  horror  of  soul  that 
for  these  things  God  will  bring  men  into  judgment :  this 
is  not  to  quench  charity  and  humanity  (God  forbid !),  but 
rather  to  enkindle  in  the  soul  a  consuming,  unappeasable 
compassion ;  such  a  compassion  as  in  every  age  has  made 
of  earnest  men  missionaries  and  martyrs,  and  has  taught 
the  heralds  of  truth  and  mercy,  with  yearnings  like 
those  of  God's  missionary  Son  and  a  self-sacrificing  love 
kindled  at  His  own,  to  endure  all  things  for  the  elect's 
sake,  that  they  may  obtain  salvation. 

But  for  the  signal  grace  of  God  to  our  fathers  in  send- 
ing to  these  shores  His  Christian  Gospel,  we  had  been 
to-day  part  and  parcel  of  heathendom.  He  alone  has  made 
Englishmen  to  difier.  The  responsibility  on  us  is  not 
just  a  responsibility  for  the  faithful  use  of  Christian  light 
and  Christian  grace,  lest  having  had  the  greater  privilege 
we  end  by  incurring  the  greater  guilt.  No,  not  that  only 
— though  all  heathendom,  from  Pekin  to  Patagonia,  should 
rise  in  judgment  to  rebuke  us.  But  on  us  there  lies  the 
tremendous  obligation  to  give  what  we  have  received  and 
as  we  have  received;  to  pity  as  we  have  been  pitied. 


THE  NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  PAGANISM.  2>7 

teacli  what  we  have  been  taught,  and  by  God's  help  save 
others — we  who  have  been  saved  ourselves.  What  do  I 
say  ?  "  The  tremendous  obligation  !  "  Ought  I  not  to 
have  said,  the  supreme  privilege  and  blessedness?  that 
for  sake  of  which  England  is,  and  for  sake  of  helping  in 
which  it  is  worth  while  to  be  an  English  Christian? 
Verily,  to  us  of  all  nations  has  been  entrusted  a  steward- 
ship of  the  Gospel.  Woe  unto  us  if  we  preach  not  the 
Gospel !  But  what  shall  be  our  honour  and  reward,  if 
English  adventure,  English  commerce,  and  English  gold, 
prove  to  be  pioneers  or  aids  to  English  Christianity,  in 
its  task  of  bringing  light  to  those  "dark  places  of  the 
earth"  which  are  full  to  this  hour  of  "habitations  of 
cruelty ! " 


(     38     ) 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  PRACTICAL  OUTCOME  OF  JUDAISM. 

"Wherefore  thou  art  without  excuse,  0  man,  whosoever  thou  art  that 
judgest :  for  wherein  thou  judgest  another,  thou  condemnest  thyself  ;  for 
thou  that  judgest  dost  practise  the  same  things.  And  we  know  that  the 
judgment  of  God  is  according  to  truth  against  them  that  practise  such 
things.  And  reckonest  thou  this,  0  man,  who  judgest  them  that  practise 
such  things,  and  doest  the  same,  that  thou  shalt  escape  the  judgment  of 
God?  Or  despisest  thou  the  riches  of  his  goodness  and  forbearance  and 
longsuffering,  not  knowing  that  the  goodness  of  God  leadeth  thee  to  repent- 
ance ?  but  after  thy  hardness  and  impenitent  heart  treasurest  up  for  thyself 
wrath  in  the  day  of  wrath  and  revelation  of  the  righteous  judgment  of  God  ; 
who  will  render  to  every  man  according  to  his  works :  to  them  that  by 
patience  in  well-doing  seek  for  glory  and  honour  and  incorruption,  eternal 
life  :  but  unto  them  that  are  factious,  and  obey  not  the  truth,  but  obey 
unrighteousness,  shall  be  wrath  and  indignation,  tribulation  and  anguish, 
upon  every  soul  of  man  that  worketh  evil,  of  the  Jew  first,  and  also  of  the 
Greek ;  but  glory  and  honour  and  peace  to  every  man  that  worketh  good, 
to  the  Jew  first,  and  also  to  the  Greek :  for  there  is  no  respect  of  persons 
with  God.  For  as  many  as  have  sinned  without  law  shall  also  perish  without 
law  :  and  as  many  as  have  sinned  under  law  shall  be  judged  by  law  ;  for  not 
the  hearers  of  a  law  are  just  before  God,  but  the  doers  of  a  law  shall  be 
justified  :  for  when  Gentiles  which  have  no  law  do  by  nature  the  things  of 
the  law,  these,  having  no  law,  are  a  law  unto  themselves  ;  in  that  they  shew 
the  work  of  the  law  written  in  their  hearts,  their  conscience  bearing  witness 
therewith,  and  their  thoughts  one  with  another  accusing  or  else  excusing 
them  ;  in  the  day  when  God  shall  judge  the  secrets  of  men,  according  to  my 
gospel,  by  Jesus  Christ.  But  if  thou  bearest  the  name  of  a  Jew,  and  restest 
upon  the  law,  and  gloriest  in  God,  and  knowest  his  will,  and  approvest  the 
things  that  are  excellent,  being  instructed  out  of  the  law,  and  art  confident 
that  thou  thyself  art  a  guide  of  the  blind,  a  light  of  them  that  are  in  darkness, 
a  corrector  of  the  foolish,  a  teacher  of  babes,  having  in  the  law  the  form  of 
knowledge  and  of  the  truth  ;  thou  therefore  that  teachest  another,  teachest 
thou  not  thyself  ?  thou  that  preachest  a  man  should  not  steal,  dost  thou  steal  ? 
thou  that  sayest  a  man  should  not  commit  adultery,  dost  thou  commit  adultery  ? 


THE  PRACTICAL  OUTCOME  OF  JQDATSM.  39 

thou  tliat  abhorrest  idols,  dost  thou  rob  temples  ?  thou  who  gloriest  in  the 
law,  through  thy  transgression  of  the  law  dishonourest  thou  God  ?  For  the 
name  of  God  is  blasphemed  among  the  Gentiles,  because  of  you,  even  as  it  is 
written.  For  circumcision  indeed  profiteth,  if  thou  be  a  doer  of  the  law  :  but 
if  thou  be  a  transgressor  of  the  law,  thy  circumcision  is  become  uncircum- 
cision.  If  therefore  the  uncircumcision  keep  the  ordinances  of  the  law,  shall 
not  his  uncircumcision  be  reckoned  for  circumcision  ?  and  shall  not  the  uncir- 
cumcision which  is  by  nature,  if  it  fulfil  the  law,  judge  thee,  who  with  the 
letter  and  circumcision  art  a  transgressor  of  the  law  ?  For  he  is  not  a  Jew, 
which  is  one  outwardly ;  neither  is  that  circumcision,  which  is  outward  in  the 
flesh  :  but  he  is  a  Jew,  which  is  one  inwardly  ;  and  circumcision  is  that  of 
the  heart,  in  the  spii-it,  not  in  the  letter ;  whose  praise  is  not  of  men,  but  of 
God."— Rom.  ii. 

TN  order  to  lay  a  basis  for  his  exhibition  of  the  Gospel  as 
-*•  the  revelation  of  a  novel  and  much-needed  way  of  justi- 
fication for  sinful  men,  St.  Paul  has  undertaken  in  this 
section  of  his  letter  (i.  18  to  iii.  20)  to  show  that  as  yet 
no  existing  faith  or  religion  among  men  had  succeeded 
in  saving  them  from  condemnation ;  that  in  truth,  the 
previous  history  of  religion,  both  among  pagans  and  among 
Jews,  had  been  a  revelation  only  of  divine  anger  against 
sin,  since  all  the  light  which  either  the  religion  of  Nature 
or  the  religion  of  revealed  Law  could  shed  upon  the  moral 
wastes  of  humanity,  was  a  light  that  rebuked,  exposed 
and  judged,  not  a  light  that  cleared  or  justified  the 
sinner. 

So  far  as  the  heathen  nations  were  concerned,  St. 
Paul  has  traced  their  religious  development  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  first  chapter.  He  has  taught  that  even 
pagans  learned  enough  from  the  unassisted  lessons  of 
creation  to  have  kept  them  in  the  worship  of  the  true 
God  had  they  faithfully  used  their  light;  that  poly- 
theism and  idolatry  were  the  result  of  a  culpable  refusal 
to  walk  by  the  teachings  of  natural  religion,  or  to  honour 
God  so  far  as  they  knew  Him  ;  and  that  those  unmen- 
tionable vices  with  which  heathen  society  was  stained, 
with  the  social  disintegration  which  marked  the  Empire, 


40  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

were  a  natural  and  rigliteoiis  retribution  for  such  per- 
version of  truth.  Paganism  therefore  had  run  its  down- 
ward course  to  the  bottom.  In  it  was  to  be  found  no 
salvation.  Such  light  as  it  possessed  served  only  to 
"reveal  the  wrath  of  God  against  the  unrighteousness 
of  men." 

From  this  melancholy  sketch  of  the  Gentile  nations 
and  their  religious  history,  St.  Paul  turns  his  eyes  to  that 
solitary  people  which  formed  in  his  day  an  antithesis  to 
paganism.  It  was  the  boast  of  the  Jew  that  he  alone 
lived  in  the  light  and  walked  in  the  way  of  righteousness. 
To  this  tribe  of  Hebrews,  set  in  the  focus  of  contend- 
ing empires  and  divinely  guarded  through  two  thousand 
years  of  noble  ancestry,  God  had  given  what  to  the  rest  of 
the  earth  had  been  denied,  the  aid  of  supernatural  teach- 
ing. To  them  God  had  discovered  Himself,  not  by  obscure 
inference  from  the  visible  creation,  but  by  plain  speech 
and  miraculous  acts  and  a  whole  economy  of  elaborate 
instruction.  The  unity,  the  spirituality,  the  justice,  the 
holiness,  the  glory  of  the  Divine  Being  had  been  burnt 
into  the  faith  of  Israel  by  many  a  fiery  lesson.  They  knew 
His  will.  He  had  set  before  them  a  way  of  life.  He  had 
given  them  His  "  Law."  For  He  had  not  only  summed  up 
all  ethical  duties  in  the  Ten  Words — that  was  but  the 
kernel  of  the  Law  given  by  Moses — He  had  minutely 
prescribed  every  religious  and  social  obligation,  whether 
of  a  personal  or  of  a  national  character.  The  due  observ- 
ance of  these  was  believed  to  commend  each  Israelite  to 
Jehovah's  favour,  and  to  constitute  his  passport  into  the 
everlasting  kingdom  of  the  just.  The  Temple  ritual 
might  be  cumbrous  and  costly.  The  Levitical  rules  might 
interfere  in  a  multitude  of  vexatious  ways  with  the  free- 
dom of  private  life.  The  singularity  of  his  manners  might 
expose  every  travelled  Jew  to  perpetual  remark  and  not  a 


THE  PRACTICAL  OUTCOME  OF  JUDAISM.  4 1 

little  derision.  No  matter:  these  things  were  his  pride; 
because  they  marked  his  selection  by  Jehovah  for  excep- 
tional honour.  They  sealed  him  as  a  favourite  of  Heaven. 
They  were  the  path  which  led  him  to  the  paradise  of 
saints,  to  the  life  everlasting. 

Himself  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,  St.  Paul's  early 
training  had  made  him  the  last  man  to  underprize  the 
privileges  of  his  race.  His  conversion  to  Christianity 
had  not  abated  by  one  jot  the  grateful  pride  with  which 
he  looked  back  upon  the  ancient  glories  of  his  nation. 
But  one  thing  he  had  discovered  at  his  conversion.  His 
eyes  had  been  opened  to  see — and  the  sight  made  the 
whole  world  new  to  him — that  "  the  Law  "  was  not,  and 
never  could  be  to  any  Hebrew,  a  way  to  righteousness. 
In  the  possession  of  that  Law,  and  in  the  keeping  of  it, 
he  saw  his  fellow-countrymen  pursuing,  as  they  fancied, 
after  righteousness  with  God,  acceptance  in  His  sight, 
and  a  life  of  glory  and  reward  at  last.  They  were  doing 
with  infinite  zeal,  and  some  of  them  with  unsuspecting 
assurance,  precisely  what  he  himself  had  done  before  God 
opened  his  own  eyes — building  their  hope  of  everlasting 
life  on  their  Jewish  birth  and  on  a  punctilious  attention 
to  the  formalities  of  Jewish  law.  If  they  were  right  in 
that,  then  his  Gospel  of  gratuitous  acceptance  through 
trust  in  Christ  was  a  superfluity  and  a  mistake.  But  the 
test  of  the  Jews'  pretensions  lay  to  hand,  in  the  facts  of 
Jewish  life.  Did  the  morals  of  his  countrymen,  then,  fit 
them  to  stand  before  the  righteous  tribunal  of  eternal 
justice?  Had  they  so  kept  their  boasted  Law  as  to 
attain  by  it  to  practical  righteousness  ?  Let  the  observa- 
tion of  the  Eoman  world  reply.  The  appeal  is  a  rough 
and  ready  one — fit  for  the  occasion.  In  his  own  case,  to 
be  sure,  Paul's  Hebrew  life  had  been  outwardly  pure. 
Like  a  good  many  of  his  nobler  contemporaries,  especially 


42  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

among  the  Palestine  schools,  he  could  accuse  himself  of 
no  patent  vices.  If  he  had  learnt  how  impotent  was  an 
external  law  to  secure  inward  purity,  it  had  only  been 
through  the  hidden  working  of  evil  desire  within  his  soul. 
Here,  however,  he  is  writing  to  a  community  familiar 
with  foreign  Jews  resident  in  a  heathen  city — resident 
in  that  city  where  of  all  others  upon  earth  the  basest 
elements  from  every  land  flowed  together  to  make  one 
another  worse :  and  he  could  appeal  to  the  observation  of 
Eoman  Christians  whether  the  Jews  of  Eome  were  not  as 
bad  in  morals  as  any  pagan — nay,  whether  the  very  name 
of  Jew  had  not  come  to  be  on  Gentile  lips  a  word  of 
opprobrium  and  reproach. 

I  proceed  to  analyse  with  a  little  more  detail  this  care- 
ful and  remarkable  piece  of  reasoning,  by  which,  through 
a  whole  chapter,  St.  Paul  labours  to  convict  his  country- 
men of  lying  under  the  same  righteous  judgment  for  sin 
as  the  heathen,  in  spite  of  their  boasted  possession  of 
the  Law. 

It  takes  the  form  throughout  of  an  argumentative 
address  directed  against  an  imaginary  opponent.  The 
inspired  advocate  for  the  Gospel  has  before  him  an  ideal 
or  typical  Jew,  who  concentrates  in  himself  the  most 
characteristic  features  of  Jewish  life  as  they  presented 
themselves  in  the  Apostolic  age.  This  typical  Jew  is  a 
confident,  conceited  and  censorious  bigot,  who  makes  a 
great  deal  of  his  superior  enlightenment  as  one  of  the 
instructed  nation.  On  the  strength  of  his  knowing  what 
is  right  so  much  better  than  the  heathen,  he  sets  himself 
up  as  the  judge  of  his  heathen  neighbours.  He  is  severe 
on  their  profligacy,  idolatry  and  dishonesty.  He  clearly 
sees  that  over  Gentile  sinners  there  impends  a  fearful 
doom  for  their  evil  lives.     But  though  not  a  whit  purer 


THE  PKACTICAL  OUTCOME  OF  JUDAISM.  43 

in  morals  than  they,  it  never  occurs  to  him  to  apprehend 
any  real  or  impartial  judgment  of  God  on  his  own  evil 
life.  From  that  he  deems  himself  secure  on  the  ground 
of  his  national  privileges,  as  a  pure-blooded,  circumcised 
child  of  the  covenant.  He  bears  on  his  flesh,  as  he 
thinks,  a  seal  or  pledge  of  his  own  hereditary  exemption 
from  that  strict  reckoning  and  appalling  retribution  at 
the  hands  of  eternal  justice,  which  he  is  not  slow  to 
predict  against  the  uncircumcised  nations  of  the  outside 
world. 

At  the  root  of  such  a  state  of  mind  as  this,  there 
must  always  lie,  though  it  may  be  unconsciously,  a  feel- 
ing that  God  is  partial  in  His  judgments.  The  first 
thing,  accordingly,  on  which  St.  Paul  lays  anxious  stress 
is  this : — 

(i.)  The  judgment  of  God  according  to  men's  works  is 
just,  inevitable  and  impartial  (verses  2-1 1).  It  is  a  judg- 
ment according  to  works  which  the  Jew  ought,  on  theory, 
to  challenge.  For  he  seeks  to  be  saved  by  a  "  law  " — that 
is,  by  a  thing  to  be  done.  If  he  is  to  be  justified  at  all,  it 
must  be  through  the  coincidence  of  his  life  with  that  rule 
of  living  which  God  gave  to  his  nation  and  on  which  he 
plumes  himself.  That  very  sign  of  the  covenant  in  his 
flesh  in  which  he  trusts,  is  a  pledge  on  his  part  that  he 
will  keep  the  Law.  His  reliance,  therefore,  is  not  on  divine 
mercy,  but  on  divine  justice.  Yet  he  forgets  that  the  same 
justice  which  he  invokes  or  denounces  against  the  heathen 
sinner  must,  to  be  justice  at  all,  smite  him  equally  who  is 
an  equal  sinner  (ver.  3).  Every  one  knows,  even  without 
any  special  help  from  revelation,  that  the  judgment  of  God 
against  the  evil-doer  is  "  according  to  truth,"  true  to  the 
facts  (ver.  2) ;  and  His  judgment  is  inescapable  and  uni- 
versal. It  is  true  that  it  is  a  deferred  judgment.  We  do 
not  yet  see,  in  this  present  life,  nor  so  long  as  this  present 


44  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

era  runs  shall  we  ever  see,  the  return  which  the  tremen- 
dous Judge  and  Vindicator  of  all  is  to  render  to  the  actions 
of  men.  That  dies  irce,  which  is  to  reveal  God's  righteous 
judgment,  is  meanwhile  held  back,  impendent  over  the 
forgetful  and  unheeding  earth.  But  it  is  surely  putting 
a  miserable  misconstruction  upon  this  delay,  to  think  that 
delay  means  final  escape  !  This  is  to  misread  and  to  abuse 
the  generosity  of  the  Judge.  Delay  means  forbearance 
and  longsuffering.  It  comes  of  the  rich  goodness  of  His 
heart  who  would  have  no  man  to  be  lost,  but  would  hold 
out  to  every  one  of  us  a  place  and  a  season  for  repentance. 
Each  day  the  golden  sun  arises  on  this  foul  earth  to  look 
afresh  upon  its  knavery  and  cruelty  and  profanity,  and 
reaches  its  western  bed  without  being  blotted  out  of 
heaven  by  the  no  longer  patient  cloud  of  the  Almighty's 
anger,  is  a  fresh  angel  of  goodness,  summoning  the  spared 
race  to  repent,  with  the  old  urgent  cry  of  divine  solicitude 
and  inextinguishable  pity :  "  Why  will  ye  die  ? "  To 
harden  one's  soul  in  guilty  impenitence  just  because  God 
prolongs  one's  opportunity  of  repenting,  or  dream  that 
judgment,  long  escaped,  may  be  escaped  for  ever,  is  not 
only  to  "despise"  the  goodness  of  God,  it  is  positively 
to  turn  it  into  a  curse.  It  is  to  pile  up  against  one- 
self huger  and  huger  stores  of  wrath  ab  the  back  of  that 
forbearance  which  now  indeed  banks  them  up  in  re- 
serve and  holds  them  back  from  overflow,  but  which, 
once  the  day  has  come,  will  let  them  go,  to  repay  with 
"tribulation  and  anguish"  every  soul  of  man  that  doeth 
evil  (verses  4-9). 

This  delay  on  God's  part  to  judge  is  itself  a  hint  that 
by  his  deeds  no  man  can  be  saved.  Its  tendency  and 
design  are  to  lead  towards  repentance;  towards  a  con- 
sciousness of  guilt,  or  even  an  evangelical  despair  of  being 
justified  by  law,  and  a  resort  in  consequence  to  that  mercy 


THE  PRACTICAL  OUTCOME  OF  JUDAISM.  45 

of  God  wliicli  justifies  us  through  faith  in  Him.  But  if, 
encouraged  by  delay,  a  man  continues  impenitent,  he  pro- 
vokes or  challenges  the  judgment  according  to  his  deeds. 
This  judgment  according  to  his  deeds  he  shall  have  ;  and 
it  will  be  "  without  respect  of  persons,"  Impenitent  men 
who  have  been  alike  in  their  deeds  must  be  alike  at  last 
in  their  condemnation. 

(2.)  So  far  St.  Paul  has  merely  been  laying  down  an 
abstract  theory  of  the  divine  impartiality  in  retribution. 
He  has  not  yet  spoken  of  the  Hebrew  "  Law."  He  does 
not  at  first  name  Jew  or  Gentile.*  He  addresses  his 
antagonist  simply  as  a  man  who  presumes  to  judge  others 
for  sins  of  which  he  himself  is  no  less  guilty.  At  this 
point,  however,  he  begins  to  regard  his  reader  as  a  Jew, 
separated  from  the  unclean  and  ignorant  heathen  by  his 
privileged  standing  under  the  Mosaic  Law ;  only,  instead 
of  recognising  the  difference  which  this  creates  as  telling 
in  the  Jew's  favour,  he  unexpectedly  turns  it  against 
him.  It  gives  him  nothing  but  a  fatal  pre-eminence  in 
guilt  and  judgment. 

The  Jew  is  right  in  believing  that  he  and  the  pagan  do 
not  occupy  one  level.  He  is  right  when  he  claims  priority 
over  his  heathen  neighbours.  Even  when  a  Jew  and  a 
Gentile  sin  the  same  sins,  they  still  hold  a  very  different 
position  in  God's  eye  ;  they  stand  under  distinct  categories. 
The  Gentile  sins  "  without  law,"  as  St.  Paul  puts  it ;  and 
the  Jew  "  in  the  Law."  f  That  is,  every  sin  of  the  latter 
was  committed  within  the  sacred  bounded  circle  of  privi- 
leged Hebrew  life,  whose  characteristic  was  that  it  was 
encompassed  and  overshadowed  by  divine  legislation  ;  all, 
to  its  very  details,  cared  for,  prescribed,  and  hallowed  by 
the  express  orders  of  Jehovah.     In  full  knowledge  of  what 

*  This  is  not  done  till  ver.  9,      f  See  ver.  12.     dpoficjs  and  iv  vofxcp. 


46     THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

Jehovah  commanded  and  in  defiance  of  every  obligation 
to  obey,  the  Jewish  sinner  sinned  his  sin.  Whereas 
when  a  pagan  sinner  did  the  very  same  act,  he  did  it 
outside  of  the  Law,  as  a  stranger  to  the  light  which  God 
had  cast  on  conduct  and  to  the  ties  by  which  He  had  bound 
His  people  to  duty.  There  was  unquestionably  a  mighty 
difference  between  the  same  act  done  by  these  two  men ; 
and  to  be  impartial,  judgment  must  take  notice  of  that 
difference.  So  indeed  it  will.  Judgment  when  it  comes 
will  respect  the  priority  of  the  Jew.  It  will  begin  with 
him  first.  The  higher  platform  on  which  he  sinned  will 
be  the  higher  platform  on  which  he  shall  be  judged.  The 
unhappy  pagan  offender  had  j  ust  enough  of  the  rudiments 
of  ethical  duty  written  in  his  heart  and  attested  by  the 
accusations  of  his  own  conscience  to  leave  him  indeed 
without  excuse  (verse  15).  Condemned  by  that  law 
which  his  own  nature  furnished  to  him,*  he  shall  perish 
^'without  Law"  of  Moses.  But  the  privileged  citizen 
of  that  favoured  polity,  whose  fence  and  boast  was  the 
divine  Law  given  to  Moses,  must  (to  be  fairly  judged)  be 
judged  "6?/  that  Law ;"  by  its  clearer  light,  by  its  loftier 
morality,  by  its  stricter  requirements,  by  its  more  sacred 
and  more  awful  sanctions.  It  is  a  miserable  delusion, 
therefore,  to  fancy  that  the  privilege  of  hearing  God  tell 
us  our  duty,  lifts  us  above  responsibility  for  doing  it,  or 
sets  us  beyond  the  reach  of  judgment  for  not  doing  it. 
Nay :  it  only  confers  on  us,  if  we  sin,  a  shameful  pre- 
eminence in  sinfulness,  and,  when  we  are  judged,  a  fatal 
priority  of  condemnation. 

(3.)  All  through  the  present  discussion,  St.  Paul  has 
taken  it  for  granted  that  the  essence  of  criminality  lies 
in  unfaithfulness  to  known  duty.     Again  and  again  he 

*  Ver.  1 2  :  iavToh  iialv  vo/xos. 


THE  PRACTICAL  OUTCOME  OF  JUDAISM.  47 

has  let  it  appear  that  the  divine  judgments  on  human 
transgression  repose  on  this  principle  that  (as  St.  James 
puts  it)  :  "  To  him  that  knoweth  to  do  good  and  doeth  it 
not,  to  him  it  is  sin."  On  this  principle  he  has  explained 
the  guilt  of  heathenism.  It  lay  here,  that  when  men 
"  knew  God,  they  glorified  Him  not,"  but  "  held  down 
the  truth  in  unrighteousness."  On  this  principle  he  has 
described  the  aggravated  criminality  of  those  later  pagans 
of  the  debased  classical  period,  who,  "  knowing  the  ordin- 
ance of  God,  that  they  which  practise  "  social  enormities 
"are  worthy  of  death,  not  only  do  the  same  but  also 
consent  with  them  that  practise  them."  On  the  same 
principle,  he  now  (ver.  17  ff.)  turns  that  very  knowledge 
of  the  Law  on  which  his  Jewish  countryman  relied,  iuto 
a  weapon  against  him:  "Wherein  thou  judgest  another 
thou  condemnest  thyself." 

We  who  look  on  the  outside  of  human  life,  and  see  how 
unequal  is  the  knowledge  of  duty  possessed  by  different 
classes  in  society,  but  cannot  see  how  far  in  any  given 
case  sin  is  the  result  of  knowledge  withstood  and  inward 
light  quenched  or  refused,  do  not  attempt  to  apply  this 
rule  to  one  another.  So  far  as  we  are  concerned,  its  true 
application  as  a  test  by  which  to  measure  the  moral  guilt 
of  men  must  for  the  most  part  be  left  to  that  tremendous 
"  day  of  revelation,"  when  "  God  shall  judge  the  secrets  of 
men  "  by  that  accurate  Searcher  of  motives  and  impartial 
Weigher  of  actions — Jesus  Christ.  It  was  otherwise  with 
such  persons  as  St.  Paul  had  here  in  his  eye,  the  typical 
Jews  of  his  own  age.  For  one  thing,  their  sins  were 
patent  enough.  That  dispersion  of  the  Hebrew  race 
which  was  finally  consummated  at  the  fall  of  Jerusalem 
a  few  years  after  St.  Paul  wrote  this  letter,  had  begun  as 
early  as  their  captivity.  It  had  been  furthered  by  the 
conquests  of  Alexander  and  the  wars  of  his  successors. 


48     THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

When  Paul  wrote  it  had  made  the  Jew  as  familiar  a 
figure  in  every  great  city  of  the  empire  as  in  Tiberias  or 
Cesarea.  Perhaps  they  were  not  the  worst  of  the  nation 
who  migrated  to  foreign  cities ;  but  they  soon  sank  as  a 
class  to  the  lowest  level.  A  vagrant  life,  association  with 
the  servile  population  of  great  towns,  an  equivocal 
position  in  the  eye  of  Roman  law,  social  exclusion  from 
intercourse  with  Gentiles,  the  necessity  of  living  by  their 
wits  and  amassing  bullion  instead  of  stable  property,  these 
causes  were  already  at  work,  creating  that  deteriorated 
type  of  Hebrew  character  which  has  long  been  fixed  in 
Europe.  From  independent  witnesses  we  know  that  the 
Jew  was  at  that  day  the  gipsy,  the  usurer,  the  fortune- 
teller, the  pander,  and  the  slave  agent  of  the  Roman 
world  ;  everywhere  living  on  the  vices  of  the  heathen 
whom  he  despised  ;  one  of  the  most  restless,  turbulent 
and  despicable  elements  in  that  corrupt  society.  In  the 
pages  of  Latin  satirists  and  historians  the  Jew  figures 
just  as  he  does  on  this  page  of  St.  Paul.  A  thief, 
an  adulterer,  a  trafficker  in  idolatrous  gains,  bringing 
Jehovah's  name  into  contempt  throughout  heathendom ; 
the  picture  is  dark  enough  (verses  21-24).  This  is  what 
had  come  of  Israel's  religious  privileges  and  ancestral 
glories.  This  was  the  upshot  of  its  national  attempt  to 
attain  to  the  righteousness  of  God  by  the  works  of  "  the 
Law."  Ignorant  of  God's  righteousness,  or  of  any  other 
way  to  justification  but  through  their  own  merits,  their 
religious  history  had  worked  itself  out  and  the  end  was 
this!  An  open  rupture  betwixt  profession  and  per- 
formance, betwixt  religion  and  morals ;  on  one  side,  a  faith 
which  was  mocked  by  their  life ;  on  the  other,  a  life  which 
was  condemned  by  their  faith.  For  while  in  morals  they 
were  a  byword  even  to  heathens,  these  same  Jews  of  the 
Dispersion  were  eaten  up  with  religious  self-importance, 


THE  PRACTICAL  OUTCOME  OF  JUDAISM.  49 

and  looked  down  upon  heathens  as  outcasts  and  unclean. 
Your  Jew  considered  all  men  who  worshipped  idols  as 
*'  foolish  "  and  "  blind,"  mere  "  babes  "  in  religious  know- 
ledge, whom  it  was  his  mission  to  lead,  to  teach  and  to 
enlighten  (verses  19,  20).  Arrogant  and  bigoted  zeal  for 
proselytizing  went  hand  in  hand,  therefore,  with  personal 
proiligacy.  It  was  nothing  to  be  a  cheat  or  a  procurer  to 
the  basest  passions ;  it  was  everything  to  know  the  true 
God  whom  Gentiles  did  not  know,  to  be  circumcised  into 
His  covenant  and  instructed  carefully  in  His  Law  in  the 
Sabbath  synagogue  (verses  17,  18).  Hearing  the  Law  had 
parted  company  with  the  doing  of  it.  Israel's  glory  had 
become  the  witness  to  Israel's  disgrace. 

It  would  be  a  grave  mistake  to  say  that  as  Christians  we 
hold  in  the  modern  world  a  parallel  place  to  that  of  Israel 
in  the  world  which  Paul  knew.  St.  Paul's  contention  is 
that  the  position  of  Christians  is  in  some  sense  precisely 
the  reverse.  The  Jew  failed  as  egregiously  as  the  pagan 
to  attain  to  a  justifying  righteousness  before  God,  because 
he  possessed  only  a  Law  which  gave  him  the  knowledge 
of  sin  without  giving  any  power  to  vanquish  sin.  Just 
because  the  Law  thus  failed  to  justify  or  to  regenerate 
mankind,  does  St.  Paul  produce,  as  with  blast  of  a  herald's 
trumpet,  his  Gospel  of  free  acquittal  by  faith,  a  Gospel 
with  a  divine  power  in  it  to  do  what  neither  paganism  nor 
Judaism  did  to  save  sinful  men.  It  is  when  he  has  cleared 
the  ground  of  earlier  systems  by  demonstrating  their  prac- 
tical failure  on  the  stage  of  history,  that  St.  Paul  intro- 
duces the  righteousness  of  God  which  is  by  faith  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Christianity  is  something  else  than  a  new  code  of 
morals,  replacing  the  old  one.  Rather,  viewed  as  a  mes- 
sage of  salvation,  Christianity  is  the  antithesis  of  Judaism 
— the  superseder  and  the  substitute  of  its  "  Law."     Having 

D 


50  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

tried  both  the  light  of  Nature  and  the  better  light  of 
revealed  Law,  and  proved  itself  incompetent  to  walk  in  its 
own  strength,  mankind  is  shut  up  to  this  humiliating 
result,  that,  unless  we  are  saved  by  another  strength  and 
justified  by  another  righteousness  than  our  own^  we  can 
neither  be  saved  nor  justified  at  all,  but  must  meet  the 
day  of  judgment  in  our  guilt.  By  grace,  if  at  all,  must 
men  be  saved ;  and  the  salvation  which  is  by  grace  is  the 
discovery  of  Paul's  Gospel. 

Yet  it  is  possible  for  Christians  so  far  to  mistake  the 
nature  of  their  own  Gospel  as  to  take  it,  after  all,  for  just 
another  law  of  righteousness,  like  the  Mosaic  system. 
Christianity  has  its  moral  precepts  too.  It  has  its  guarded 
circle  of  outward  privilege.  It  has  in  the  room  of  circum- 
cision, baptism,  and  for  the  Passover,  the  Eucharist,  and 
for  the  synagogue,  the  Church.  So  that  it  is  perfectly 
possible  for  us  to  pride  ourselves  on  our  exceptionally 
enlightened  and  privileged  position  as  Christians,  or  to 
trust  for  acceptance  before  God  to  our  Christian  position, 
as  the  Jew  trusted  to  his.  But  by  the  deeds  of  Christian 
law  can  a  man  be  as  little  justified  as  by  the  deeds  of 
Moses'  law ;  by  baptism  and  the  church  as  little  saved 
as  by  circumcision  and  the  synagogue.  The  Gospel  is 
not  a  "  law "  of  life,  but  a  message  of  pardon ;  not  a 
thing  to  be  done,  but  a  word  to  be  believed ;  not  salvation 
by  privilege,  but  salvation  by  grace.  It  is  Christ  who 
saves,  not  our  Christianity.  Christ  saves  by  what  He 
does  for  us  and  in  us,  not  by  what  He  bids  us  do.  And 
he  is  as  little  a  Christian,  as  a  Jew,  who  is  one  "out- 
wardly, in  the  flesh,"  in  the  word  or  names  of  things ;  but 
he  is  a  Christian  who  is  one  "  inwardly,"  by  the  renewing 
grace  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  that  penitent  trust  for  mercy 
to  the  meritorious  passion  of  the  Son  of  God  by  which 
we  are  made  partakers  in  His  resurrection  life.     Only 


THE  PRACTICAL  OUTCOME  OF  JUDAISM.  5  I 

when  it  is  thus  embraced  and  allowed  full  scope,  can  the 
Gospel  be  fairly  tested  by  its  results.  Then  it  proves 
itself  to  be  the  "  power  of  God  unto  salvation,"  by  doing 
what  no  law  of  conduct  taken  by  itself  can  do.  "The 
ordinances  of  the  Law  are  fulfilled  in  us,  who  walk  not 
after  the  flesh,  but  after  the  Spirit." 


(       52       ) 


CHAPTER  y. 

JEWISH  OBJECTIONS  REPELLED. 

"What  advantage  then  hath  the  Jew?  or  what  is  the  profit  of  circum- 
cision ?  Much  every  way :  first  of  all,  that  they  were  intrusted  with  the 
oracles  of  God.  For  what  if  some  were  without  faith  ?  shall  their  want  of 
faith  make  of  none  effect  the  faithfulness  of  God  ?  God  forbid  :  yea,  let  God 
be  found  true,  but  every  man  a  liar ;  as  it  is  written,  That  thou  mightest 
be  justified  in  thy  words,  and  mightest  prevail  when  thou  comest  into  judg- 
ment. But  if  our  unrighteousness  commendeth  the  righteousness  of  God, 
what  shall  we  say  ?  Is  God  unrighteous  who  visiteth  with  wrath  ?  (I  speak 
after  the  manner  of  men.)  God  forbid :  for  then  how  shall  God  judge  the 
world  ?  But  if  the  truth  of  God  through  my  lie  abounded  unto  his  glory, 
why  am  I  also  still  judged  as  a  sinner  ?  and  why  not  (as  we  be  slanderously 
reported,  and  as  some  affirm  that  we  say),  Let  us  do  evil,  that  good  may 
come?  whose  condemnation  is  just." — KOM.  iii.  i-8. 

T  ET  us  remind  ourselves  how  this  passage  enters  into  St. 
-^  Paul's  reasoning.  It  has  been  seen  in  former  chapters 
that  he  is  engaged  in  paving  the  way  for  that  method 
of  acquitting  and  saving  sinful  men  which  God  has  re- 
vealed to  us  by  His  Gospel.  In  order  to  do  this,  he  has 
undertaken  to  prove  that  the  world  needed  a  new  path  to 
righteousness,  that  all  sorts  of  men  are  in  point  of  fact 
condemned,  and  that  no  previous  religion  had  availed  to 
justify  or  save  them.  On  the  contrary,  the  practical 
outcome  of  existing  religions  had  been  a  condition  of 
excessive  demoralisation  all  over  the  world  ;  and  whatever 
religious  light  men  possessed  had  done  little  else  but 
expose  and  judge  and  sentence  them  for  their  practical 
abuses.     That  this  was  true  of  the  pagan  world  he  showed 


JEWISH  OBJECTIONS  REPELLED.  53 

in  the  latter  part  of  the  first  chapter.  The  second  chapter 
has  shown  it  to  be  no  less  true  of  the  Hebrew  nation. 
Against  the  favoured  Jew  he  has  made  good  this  terrible 
indictment,  that  so  far  from  his  possession  of  God's 
revealed  Law  saving  him  from  sin  and  judgment,  that 
very  Law  only  made  his  fall  the  more  conspicuous, 
because  it  branded  with  deeper  guilt  those  vices  which 
had  made  the  name  of  Jew  a  byword  of  opprobrium  even 
on  Gentile  lips.  Circumcision — the  boasted  badge  of  his 
nation — was  no  license  to  crime,  neither  could  it  justify 
a  man  whose  life  was  evil.  It  rather  bound  him  over 
the  more  to  keep  the  law  of  virtue,  and  condemned  him 
the  more  when  he  broke  it. 

At  this  point,  therefore,  St.  Paul  seems  to  have  estab- 
lished his  case.  He  has  "  already  proved  both  Jews  and 
Gentiles  to  be  under  sin,"  and  he  might  pass  at  once, 
one  thinks,  to  his  conclusion  at  chapter  iii.  20 :  "  By  the 
works  of  the  law  shall  no  llesh  be  justified  in  God's 
sight."  But  no.  Before  he  can  proceed  to  that  con- 
clusion there  are  two  supplementary  pieces  of  work  to  be 
done,  (i.)  His  indictment  against  the  Jew  as  a  man 
still  under  condemnation  for  his  sin,  like  any  Gentile, 
lay  open  to  an  objection :  that  objection  has  to  be 
repelled.  (2.)  It  has  also  to  be  shown  consistent  with 
their  own  Hebrew  Scriptures :  that  Scripture  proof  has 
to  be  adduced.  These  therefore  form  a  couple  of  supple- 
ments or  appendices  to  the  argument  of  the  second 
chapter. 

At  present  we  have  to  deal  only  with  the  first  of  them : 
The  objection  repelled. 

The  objection  is  this :  ^'  If  it  be  true  as  you  say  that 
the  outward  badge  of  circumcision  and  the  possession  of 
the  Mosaic  Law  do  not  really  constitute  a   man  a  true 


54  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

Jew,  or  give  him  any  better  standing  before  God  than  a 
Gentile — if,  on  the  contrary,  the  Jew  is  to  be  tried  for 
his  faults  and  condemned  for  them  just  as  though  he 
were  an  uncircumcised  heathen — then*  what  advantage 
has  the  Jew  over  a  Gentile  at  all  ?  He  has  none."  Or, 
to  put  the  question  still  more  sharply :  "  What  is  the 
good  of  being  circumcised  ?     There  is  no  good  in  it."  f 

Such  an  objection  as  this  was  likely  to  arise  in  the 
mind  of  a  Hebrew  reader  of  this  letter.  It  implied  that 
St.  Paul  was  proving  too  much.  His  argument  appeared 
to  place  God's  favoured  people  on  a  level  no  higher  than 
other  men  occupied.  Such  disparagement  of  the  chosen 
race  was  not  only,  in  Paul's  mouth,  unpatriotic  and 
unseemly,  but  in  point  of  fact  untrue.  It  was  impossible 
to  leave  an  objection  like  this  in  his  rear,  unsilenced. 
St.  Paul  replies  to  it. 

Before  we  proceed,  however,  to  hear  his  reply,  notice 
for  an  instant  the  fallacy  which  underlies  all  objections 
of  this  sort.  It  is  a  fallacy  of  the  human  heart.  Men 
are  always  prone  to  fancy  that  any  favour  which  God 
shows  them  must  render  it  harder  for  Him  to  be  quite 
strict  or  even  impartial  when  He  comes  to  judge  them 
for  their  faults.  People  who  are  exceptionally  favoured 
involuntarily  feel  as  if  their  need  for  implicit  obedience 
to  God's  law  were  rather  less  urgent  and  His  judgments 
not  so  very  much  to  be  dreaded  by  them  ;  as  if,  in  fact, 
God's  goodness  meant  indulgence,  and  His  selection  of 
any  one  for  special  privilege  meant  favouritism.  Here 
was  the  way  in  which  that  fallacy  worked  in  the  case  of 
the  Jew:  "God  has  selected  me  and  my  fathers  to  be 
His  peculiar,  favoured,  honoured  people  upon  earth.  He 
has  worked  wonders  for  us,  spoken  to  us  with  His  voice, 

*  In  iii.  I,  the  oip  refers  to  ii.  28,  29, 
t  tI  implies  a  negative  answer. 


JEWISH  OBJECTIONS  EEPELLED.  55 

slione  among  us  by  His  presence,  given  us  His  Law,  and 
fenced  us  about  with  a  thousand  promises  of  exceptional 
protection  and  love.  We  are  His  favourites,  then,  and 
He  never  surely  can  mean  to  call  us  to  so  rigorous  a 
reckoning,  or  cast  us  ofif  at  last  into  the  very  same  doom, 
as  await  the  uncircumcised  pagans  who  know  Him  not." 

One  cannot  be  surprised  that  the  Jew  felt  so,  when 
one  sees  how  people  argue  among  ourselves.  One  says  : 
"  I  don't  think  God  can  mean  to  be  hard  on  me,  or  let 
me  perish ;  else  why  did  He  spare  me  to  this  age,  pre- 
serve me  wonderfully  amid  dangers,  and  fill  my  days 
with  so  much  kindness  ?  "  Anotlier  imagines  that  the 
elect  who  have  gone  through  a  proper  conversion  and 
become  regenerate  can  hardly  sin  as  other  men  do. 
Some  have  even  fancied  themselves  such  favourites  of 
heaven  that  whatever  they  chose  to  do  in  the  cause  of 
God  was  above  being  censured  like  the  acts  of  other  men 
by  a  vulgar  standard.  There  is  in  truth  scarcely  any 
limit  to  the  distorting  of  the  moral  judgment,  the  infla- 
tion of  religious  conceit,  the  pharisaism  and  the  Jesuitry 
of  which  men  are  capable  when  once  you  admit  this 
fallacy,  that  the  kindness  of  God  to  us  gives  us  any  claim 
upon  His  indulgence,  or  implies  any  willingness  on  His 
part  to  be  a  "  respecter  of  persons." 

The  answer  of  St.  Paul  to  the  objection  of  a  Hebrew 
reader  virtually  exposes  this  fallacy.  That  objection 
was :  "If  being  a  Jew  does  not  shield  a  man  from  the 
penalties  of  sin,  of  what  advantage  is  it  to  him  ?  "  Paul 
answers :  Of  much  advantage,  notwithstanding,  in  every 
point  of  view.  Certainly  it  does  not  shield  the  Jew  from 
the  consequences  of  sin.  But  to  be  shielded  from  the 
consequences  of  one's  sin  is  not  the  only  benefit  God  can 
confer  on  a  man.  That  might  even  be  no  benefit  at  all. 
Look  at  the  position  of  a  Jew  as  compared  with  a  Gentile 


56  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

how  you  will,  and  it  is  one  of  vast  and  manifest  supe- 
riority in  respect  of  privilege,  of  opportunity,  and  of 
blessing  from  God.  Only,  when  God  confers  such  supe- 
riority on  one  sinful  man  over  another,  He  is  so  far  from 
exempting  that  man  from  responsibility  for  his  sins,  that 
He  immensely  increases  his  responsibility.  The  favours 
of  God  have  the  opposite  effect  precisely  from  that  which 
the  human  heart  fallaciously  ascribes  to  them.  Instead 
of  entitling  the  select  or  favoured  sinner  to  a  less  rigorous 
judgment  or  a  more  lenient  sentence,  they  rather  impose 
on  him  a  weightier  duty  and  deepen  his  condemnation  if 
he  prove  unfaithful  to  it. 

Look,  for  example,  at  the  superiority  which  God  was 
pleased  to  confer  on  the  Hebrew  people.  In  what  did 
that  consist?  Let  us  descend  to  particulars.  It  con- 
sisted, first  of  all,  in  this — that  to  them  God  entrusted 
His  supernatural  revelation,  or  holy  oracles.  While  to 
the  rest  of  mankind  He  spoke  rarely,  if  at  all,  save  in 
the  indirect,  obscure  accents  of  reason  and  conscience  or 
by  the  voice  of  Nature,  to  this  one  small  select  tribe  in  a 
corner  of  Syria  God  for  centuries  was  sending  by  inspired 
prophets  the  fullest,  plainest,  most  unambiguous  and  lumi- 
nous teaching  about  Himself,  His  will,  His  worship.  His 
character,  His  merciful  purposes,  His  destined  redemption 
and  the  future  of  His  kingdom.  Why  did  God  give  all 
that  wealth  of  revelation  to  the  Hebrews  ?  Because  He 
had  a  private  partiality  for  them  ?  That  they  might  plume 
themselves  on  being  favourites  and  despise  others?  Or 
to  encourage  them  to  think  He  cared  for  no  one  but  them- 
selves, and  cared  for  them  so  much  that  they  might  act 
as  they  pleased  ?  Certainly  not.  Such  egotistic,  narrow 
pride  in  God's  revelations  as  a  compliment  to  their  superior 
merit,  or  as  a  private  boon  to  be  kept  to  themselves,  was 
always  the  weakness  of  the  baser  part  in  Hebrew  society. 


JEWISH  OBJECTIONS  EEPELLED.  57 

But  larger  and  nobler  Hebrews,  like  Paul  himself,  never 
forgot  that  the  Jew  had  received  the  Scriptures,  not  for 
himself,  but  ultimately  for  the  human  race ;  that  the 
divine  oracles  were  not  a  Jewish  possession  so  much  as 
a  trust  held  by  Jewish  hands  for  the  world's  good ;  and 
that  the  promises  given  to  their  fathers  were  to  be  fulfilled 
in  One  Who  should  be  a  "  Light  to  lighten  the  Gentiles," 
as  well  as  the  "glory  of  His  people  Israel." 

To  be  thus  the  first  receivers  and  the  custodians  for  after 
time  of  so  precious  a  deposit  as  the  revealed  Word  of  God, 
was  surely  something  not  to  be  vain  of  indeed,  yet  to 
profit  by;  one  advantage  which  the  Jew  possessed  over 
every  Gentile.  In  any  case  it  was  a  huge  advantage. 
For  even  suppose  (Paul  goes  on  to  argue)  that  Israel,  or  a 
good  part  of  it,  failed  to  profit  by  this  possession  of  God's 
Word,  did  not  understand  it  or  believe  it  or  use  it  aright, 
was  in  fact  not  at  all  the  better  for  having  it,  did  that 
make  it  no  privilege  to  have  received  it  ?  Was  it  no  kind- 
ness to  have  got  it  straight  from  heaven  ?  Or  were  the 
oracles  themselves  false  and  worthless  simply  because  the 
men  who  held  them  in  trust  for  the  rest  of  the  world  chose 
to  make  a  bad  use  of  them  ?  Certainly  not.  God's  oracles 
are  true,  whether  you  believe  them  or  not.  He  is  faith- 
ful if  you  are  not.*  Your  incredulity  cannot  undo  the 
credibility  of  a  divine  message,  or  hinder  it  from  being 
fulfilled,  or  make  it  a  word  of  no  value  which  it  was  of  no 
consequence  for  you  to  hear.  Nay.  The  privilege  of 
receiving  divine  truth  through  divine  oracles  is  a  real 
privilege  and  a  great  privilege,  and  one  to  be  accounted 
for,  whether  you  use  that  truth  well  or  use  it  ill.  There 
was  some  profit  in  being  outwardly  a  Jew,  then,  although, 
so  far  from  relieving  a  man  from  blame  if  he  rejected 
Jehovah's  word,  it  rather  added  to  his  guilt.     There  is 

*  Cf.  CLTiaTia  and  ttjj'  iriaTiP  in  ver.  3. 


58  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

some  profit  now  in  being  taught  as  a  Christian,  even 
though,  if  we  do  not  live  as  Christians,  our  doom  shall  be 
the  worse  for  it. 

It  was  unhappily  too  true  that  (as  Paul  puts  it  with 
designed  mildness)  "some" — the  great  bulk  indeed — of 
the  Jewish  people  did  reject  the  central  hope  promised  to 
their  race,  and,  when  Messiah  came,  refused  and  slew  Him 
through  unbelief.  Eound  about  this  promise  of  the  Christ 
circled  the  whole  body  of  sacred  oracles  committed  to  the 
Hebrews ;  yet  this  promised  Christ  they  would  not  have. 
But  the  unbelief  of  the  chosen  people  did  not  hinder  the 
Almighty  from  fulfilling  His  word.  What  it  really  did, 
was  to  rob  them  of  those  saving  blessings  of  which 
they  had  the  first  offer,  and  which  they  might  have  been 
the  first  to  secure.  God's  truth  was  not  falsified  because 
they  were  found  false  to  their  national  faith  and  hope. 
On  the  contrary,  the  very  faithlessness  of  Israel  to  their 
side  in  that  national  covenant  with  God  only  threw  into 
brighter  relief  the  divine  faithfulness,  when,  turning  from 
His  faithless  elect.  He  called  in  the  heathen  in  their  stead 
and  made  His  Son  the  Head  of  a  wider  kingdom — the 
Head  and  the  King  of  Christendom.  To  say  that  God  will 
be  true  to  His  own  word  though  every  man  prove  a  liar,  is 
to  understate  the  case.  Rather  man's  falsehood  serves 
to  manifest  more  clearly  the  truth  of  God's  word  and  the 
justice  of  His  judgments ;  so  that,  as  David  sang  in  the 
fifty-first  Psalm : — 

"  Thou  mightest  be  justified  in  Thy  words, 
And  mightest  prevail  when  Thou  comest  into  judgment." 

When  the  Apostle  began  at  the  second  verse  to  parti- 
cularise the  points  of  Hebrew  pre-eminence  over  Gentiles, 
one  naturally  expected  that  after  the  first  point — the  pos- 
session of  Holy  Scripture — others  would  follow.     He  seems, 


JEWISH  OBJECTIONS  KEPELLED.  59 

in  fact,  to  Lave  intended  this  himself.  What  these  other 
advantages  of  the  Hebrew  race  were,  we  know  from  a  later 
passage  of  this  letter,  where  he  does  enumerate  them.* 
They  were  such  as  these  :  (a)  God  had  adopted  the  nation 
into  a  filial  relation  to  Himself,  for  thus  had  Jehovah  said  : 
"  Israel  is  My  son.  My  firstborn."  (b)  God  had  dwelt 
among  them  in  the  visible  "  glory "  of  His  Shekinah. 
(c)  God  had  concluded  covenants  of  friendship  both  with 
their  fathers  and  with  the  nation  itself,  (d)  He  had  given 
them  His  Law  and  (e)  arranged  the  whole  ritual  of  their 
worship.  (/)  Theirs,  too,  were  the  evangelical  promises  of 
the  Messiah ;  (g)  theirs  the  memories  of  the  patriarchs  ; 
theirs,  above  all,  (Ji)  the  supreme  honour  of  giving  birth  to 
the  human  nature  of  Him  AVho  on  His  Divine  side  is 
"  over  all,  God  blessed  for  ever."  Some  such  enumeration 
as  this  may  have  been  in  Paul's  mind  when  he  began  with 
their  possession  of  the  oracles  of  God.  But  his  discussion 
of  that  first  point  has  led  him  somewhat  aside.  A  new 
diflSculty — a  fresh  objection  which  may  be  urged  against 
his  doctrine  of  sin  and  condemnation — has  here  crossed  his 
path  ;  and  he  turns  aside  to  meet  it  also.  Let  us  see  what 
it  is. 

That  quotation  which  he  has  just  cited  from  king 
David's  great  Psalm  of  penitence  cuts  to  the  very  roots 
of  the  relation  betwixt  man's  sins  and  God's  judgment. 
It  is  the  deep  breathing  of  a  sinner  who  in  his  profound 
consciousness  of  guilt  has  caught  sight  of  the  awful  truth 
that  God  uses  the  very  sin  of  His  creatures  to  make 
more  transparent  to  all  created  eyes  the  uprightness  of 
His  sentence  when  He  dooms  them.  God  is  equally 
just  and  true  in  His  sentence  against  every  transgressor, 
the  most  occult  or  unacknowledged  as  well  as  the  most 
flagrant  and  confessed.     But  the  truth  or  justice  of  His 

*  See  chapter  ix.  4,  5. 


6o  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

sentence  is  then  disclosed  so  that  it  can  neither  be  im- 
peached nor  questioned,  when,  under  signal  circumstances, 
a  sinner  is  permitted  to  sin  with  a  high  hand  and  in  open 
rebellion  against  the  light.  Germs  of  lust  and  falsehood 
and  hate  lay  in  the  heart  of  the  Hebrew  king — visible 
enough  to  God — before  opportunity  betrayed  the  man  into 
such  crimes  as  adultery,  treachery,  and  murder.  But 
God,  who  is  never  the  Author  of  evil,  is  always  its  Lord 
or  Overruler.  When  David  lay  in  the  dust  bemoaning 
his  detected  vileness  in  the  pure  eyes  of  Jehovah,  he  saw 
that  one  result  of  his  having  fallen  into  such  scandalous 
crime  was  this — that  God's  character  as  a  Judge  would 
be  cleared  from  all  suspicion  of  severity  or  unfairness. 
The  sentence  of  God  against  him  would  appear  to  be  a 
sentence  completely  justified  by  the  facts.  He  had  even 
grace  enough  to  be  glad  of  that. 

The  same  principle,  it  is  plain,  admitted  of  an  easy 
application  to  the  whole  Hebrew  people.  Their  special 
privilege  in  possessing  the  written  Law  and  the  divine 
oracles,  had  worked  no  other  effect  than  to  leave  them 
more  inexcusable  than  the  heathen.  They  knew  better ; 
they  had  stronger  ties  to  God ;  their  very  profession 
condemned  their  practice.  Might  it  not  be  said  of  them, 
that  their  open  unfaithfulness  to  the  oracles  of  God,  so 
far  from  being  covered  by  their  higher  privileges,  served 
to  make  more  clear  the  justice  of  God's  sentence — to  vindi- 
cate Him,  as  it  were,  in  His  judgments  upon  them?* 

It  is  obvious,  however,  that  this  profound  principle  in 
the  moral  administration  of  the  Almighty  lies  open  to  a 
perilous  abuse.  A  false  inference  may  be  drawn  from  it. 
It  is  true,  that  inference  is  so  blasphemous  that  one  needs 
to  apologise  for  even  naming  it.     It  lies  utterly  outside 

*  The  emphatic  "  our  "  of  verse  5,  is  probably  to  be  read  as  equivalent 
to — 0/  us  Jews. 


JEWISH  OBJECTIONS  T.EPELLED.  6 1 

the  sphere  of  Christian  thought.  It  is  impossible  on 
Christian  lips.  But  it  is,  alas !  only  too  possible  to  the 
natural  heart  of  man.  Sinful  men,  in  their  eagerness  to 
exculpate  themselves,  are  given  to  think  and  say  such  a 
horrid  thing  as  this : — That  if  a  sinner's  sin  cause  God's 
justice  and  truth  to  shine  forth  more  clearly,  God  has  no 
right  to  punish  the  man  for  that  very  action  by  which  God 
Himself  (so  to  speak)  has  profited.  If  the  Eternal  reap 
good  out  of  my  evil,  tlien  I  deserve  no  longer  blame,  at  His 
hands  at  all  events ;  but  rather  thanks.  This  is  the  per- 
verted logic  of  evil  which  is  expressed  twice  over  in  these 
words  of  our  text : — ^'  If  our  unrighteousness  commend 
(or,  set  forth  in  greater  clearness)  God's  righteousness, 
what  shall  we  say  ?  That  God  in  inflicting  vengeance  upon 
us  does  an  unjust  thing?"  For  example:  "If  through  a 
lie  of  mine,  the  truth  of  God  is  made  to  appear  more 
admirable,  to  His  gi-eater  glory,  why  am  I  to  be  still 
judged  as  a  sinner  for  it  ?  " 

Every  pious  heart  must  sympathise  with  the  indignant 
rejection  by  the  Apostle  of  so  hateful  an  inference  as  this. 
But  the  arguments  by  which  he  rebuts  it  are  very  in- 
structive. They  are  two :  neither  of  them  speculative,  or 
professing  to  explain  the  deep  mysteries  of  this  tremendous 
subject,  I  mean  of  the  relation  of  God  to  that  sin  which  He 
permits  and  punishes ;  but  both  of  them  simply  exposing 
the  practical  results  which  would  follow  from  such  a  posi- 
tion. It  w^ould  prove  fatal,  he  argues,  both  to  religion  and 
to  morality. 

In  the  first  place,  if  God  could  not  justly  punish  any 
sin  which  He  is  able  to  overrule  for  good,  then  there 
could  be  no  judgment  of  the  world  at  all.  Obviously,  it 
would  always  be  open  to  a  transgressor  to  plead  in  bar  of 
judgment  that  God's  justice  was  to  be  somehow  made 
more  conspicuous  by  that  very  sin ;  and  if  tliis  made  it 


62  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

unjust  in  God  to  punisli,  how  is  God  to  judge  the  world? 
Now  the  final  judgment  of  God  is  of  all  religious  truths 
the  most  fundamental  and  the  most  certain.  Any  doctrine 
accordingly  which  should  thus  paralyze  the  hand  of  the 
final  Judge  of  men  or  drive  Him  from  His  judgment-seat, 
is  by  that  very  fact  shown  to  be  absurd  and  incredible. 

Secondly,  this  blasphemous  inference  is  as  fatal  to 
morals  as  it  is  to  faith.  It  cuts  through  the  distinction 
betwixt  good  and  evil.  If  an  act  is  no  longer  to  be  called 
bad,  or  to  be  punished,  out  of  which  some  good  comes, 
then  you  may  do  any  evil  you  like  for  the  sake  of  a  good 
result.  Of  course  this  is  on  the  face  of  it  to  confound 
moral  right  and  wrong,  and  by  withdrawing  all  practical 
restraint  on  immorality  to  open  a  perfect  flood-gate  of  evil. 
Any  doctrine  which  sanctions  such  a  conclusion  is  by  that 
very  fact,  not  absurd  only,  but  atrocious. 

Yet  this  immoral  maxim  had  actually  been  imputed  to 
St.  Paul  by  certain  of  his  contemporaries.  As  he  comes  in 
sight  of  it,  he  cannot  restrain  his  impatient  indignation  at 
such  a  calumny,  but  breaks  through  the  construction  of 
his  sentence  to  tell  us  that  some  actually  charged  him 
with  teaching  and  (what  was  even  worse)  with  practising 
the  vile  principle  :  "  Let  us  do  evil  that  good  may  come  ! " 
Who  they  were  that  said  so,  or  what  pretext  for  saying  it 
they  found  in  his  teaching,  we  can  only  guess.  But  there 
is  no  question  that  the  evangelical  doctrine  of  a  sinner's 
gratuitous  justification  on  the  ground  of  Christ's  righteous- 
ness (which  St.  Paul  is  here  preparing  to  prove)  has  often 
been  assailed  on  this  very  charge,  that  it  not  only  confers 
immunity  upon  sinners,  but  actually  holds  out  to  a  man 
an  inducement  to  continue  in  sin  that  thereby  grace  may 
abound  at  last  to  the  greater  glory  of  God.  Such  a  charge 
rests  indeed  upon  a  misconception  of  the  Gospel,  as  appears 
further  on  in  this  Epistle  (ch.  vi.  I  S).    It  is  flatly  oppug- 


JEWISH  OBJECTIONS  REPELLED.  63 

nant  to  that  consuming  zeal  for  righteousness  which  blazes 
through  every  portion  of  this  Epistle,  and  especially- 
through  the  section  we  have  been  examining.  Whatever 
Paul  taught,  every  reader  feels  that  he  was  not  a  man  to 
teach  anything  to  weaken  in  the  slightest  the  paramount 
claims  of  virtue,  or  the  guilt  and  hatefulness  of  sin,  or  the 
majesty  of  God's  judgment,  or  the  wholesome  dread  of 
men  for  a  reckoning  to  come.  On  the  contrary,  his  whole 
argument  rests  on  a  basis  of  natural  justice.  It  assumes 
that  God's  final  judgment  according  to  human  actions  is 
the  surest  of  all  things ;  that  it  must  be  impartial ;  that 
no  religious  privilege  can'lessen  responsibility,  but  must 
increase  it ;  that  you  cannot  sophisticate  sin  into  anything 
else  than  sin;  and  that  God  is  always  just  in  punishing 
every  soul  of  man  that  doeth  evil.  You  feel,  therefore, 
that  Paul  is  speaking  out  of  the  very  heart  of  his  faith,  as 
well  as  out  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  when  he 
flings  back  with  all  his  strength  this  hateful  calumny, 
protests  against  the  Gospel  (any  more  than  the  Hebrew 
Law)  being  made  a  minister  to  sin,  and  declares  that  every 
man  who  ventures  to  do  evil  that  good  may  come  shall 
meet  with  a  condemnation  which  shall  be  just. 

On  the  whole,  then,  the  lesson  of  this  section  is  to  warn 
us  against  the  insidious  temptation,  so  near  to  the  human 
heart,  to  break  down  the  edge  of  God's  justice  against  sin, 
in  the  hope  that  somehow  He  will  prove  as  placable  in  the 
last  judgment  as  He  is  kind  and  patient  now,  or  to  fancy 
that  because  He  makes  His  own  use  of  sin,  He  will  not 
avenge  it  on  the  sinner  very  strictly — especially  in  the 
case  of  people  who  belong  to  the  true  religion.  All  this 
is  most  perilous.  We  who  live  in  Christendom  are  the 
privileged  class  nowadays,  as  Jews  were  once.  Our 
superiority  over  the  heathen  is  enormous  "  in  every  way :  " 
but  it  confers  on  us  no  immunity  to  sin.     It  makes  our 


64  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOKDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

evil  deeds  not  less  evil,  but  more  so,  that  we  do  them 
under  cover  of  the  Christian  name.  In  our  own 
righteousness,  therefore,  we  dare  as  little  meet  God  at 
last  with  any  hope  to  escape  His  wrath  as  an  unbap- 
tized  infidel  dare.  Practically,  we  are  shut  up  under  sin 
— guilty  before  God,  with  no  apology  to  plead  in  bar  of 
judgment.  Hope — if  we  have  any  hope — lies  neither  in 
our  knowledge  of  the  Bible,  nor  in  our  membership  in  the 
Church,  nor  in  any  fact  about  ourselves  at  all,  but  only 
in  the  grace  of  God  through  the  redemption  that  is 
in  Christ  Jesus.  Gratuitous  justification  through  the 
righteousness  of  our  Surety — to  that  we  are  shut  up  by 
the  Apostle's  logic.  May  God  shut  us  all  up  to  it  by  what 
is  better  than  logic,  the  constraint  of  His  convicting  and 
regenerating  Spirit ! 


(     65     ) 


CHAPTER  VI. 

EVERY  MOUTH  STOPPED. 

"What  then?  are  we  in  worse  ease  than  they?  No,  in  no  wise  ;  for  wo 
before  laid  to  the  charge  both  of  Jews  and  Greeks,  that  they  are  all  under 
sin  ;  as  it  is  written,  there  is  none  righteous,  no,  not  one  ;  there  is  none  that 
understandeth,  There  is  none  that  seeketh  after  God  ;  they  have  all  turned 
aside,  they  are  together  become  unprofitable  ;  there  is  none  that  doeth  good, 
no,  not  so  much  as  one  :  their  throat  is  an  open  sepulchre  :  with  their  tongues 
they  have  used  deceit :  the  poison  of  asps  is  under  their  lijxs  :  whose  mouth 
is  full  of  cursing  and  bitterness  :  their  feet  are  swift  to  shed  blood  ;  destruc- 
tion and  misery  are  in  their  ways  ;  and  the  way  of  peace  have  they  not  known  : 
there  is  no  fear  of  God  before  their  eyes.  Now  we  know  that  what  things 
soever  the  law  saith,  it  speaketh  to  them  that  are  under  the  law  ;  that  every 
mouth  may  be  stopped,  and  all  the  world  may  be  brought  under  the  judg- 
ment of  God  ;  because  by  the  works  of  the  law  shall  no  flesh  be  justified  in  his 
sight:  for  through  the  law  cometh  the  knowledge  of  sin."— EOM.  iii.  9-20. 

OT.  PAUL  has  just  repelled  a  very  natural  objection  on 
'^  the  part  of  the  Jew  to  that  sweeping  indictment  which 
classed  Jews  and  Gentiles  in  one  category  as  alike  guilty 
before  God.  The  objection,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  this : 
that  to  class  together  in  this  way  the  Jew  with  the  Gentile 
was  virtually  to  allow  God's  favoured  people  no  privilege 
or  pre-eminence  at  all.  He  has  replied  to  that  (iii.  1-8). 
He  has  conceded  to  the  Hebrew  people  a  great  advantage 
in  respect  especially  of  religious  knowledge.  But  such 
a  superiority,  he  has  argued,  cannot  shield  the  Hebrew 
transgressor  from  God's  just  sentence  on  his  evil  deeds. 
He  is  now,  therefore,  in  a  position  to  take  up  and  re- affirm 
his  original  conclusion  as  one  which  has  been  established 
beyond  controversy   (ver.   9).      "  What  then  ?      Are  we 

E 


66  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

Jews  in  a  better  case  tlian  they  who  are  Gentiles  ?  *  That 
is :  have  we  any  such  privilege  or  preference  over  them 
as  secures  us  against  the  divine  judgment?  Not  in  the 
very  least.  On  the  contrary,  I  have  already  (in  chapters  i. 
and  ii.)  arraigned  both  Jews  and  Gentiles  as  alike  under 
the  guilt  and  power  of  sin." 

To  St.  Paul  himself,  this  had  been  the  great  discovery 
of  his  life.  It  had  wrought  a  revolution  in  his  own  history 
when  he  came  to  see,  on  that  memorable  expedition  to 
Damascus,  that  for  a  Jew  to  try  to  justify  himself  in 
Heaven's  sight  or  win  Heaven's  favour  through  his  punc- 
tilious observance  of  the  Old  Testament  Law,  w^as  an  utter 
delusion.  He  had  always  been  brought  up  to  expect 
salvation  along  that  line.  He  knew  how  deep  the  same 
mistake  lay  rooted  in  the  heart  of  his  best  countrymen. 
Now,  therefore,  since  he  has  set  himself  in  this  letter  to 
overthrow  it,  if  he  can,  he  must  leave  no  argument  unused 
which  can  assist  to  dislodge  it.  One  argument  always 
very  much  in  place  with  a  Jew  was  the  authority  of  Sacred 
Scripture.     Every  Jew  would  admit  that  an  appeal  "to 

*  The  very  hurried  way  in  which  Paul  makes  his  transition  of  thought 
at  this  point,  to  take  up  afresh  his  main  argument  after  the  parenthetic 
interruption,  iii.  5-8,  has  created  a  puzzle  for  the  interpreter.  The  diffi- 
culty is  to  make  a  good  sense  out  of  irpoexbiieda,  either  as  a  Passive  ( =  "  Jre 
we  surpassed  ? "  which  is  the  sense  preferred  by  the  Revisers  and  put  by 
them  into  the  text)  or  as  a  Middle  ( =  "  Have  ive  an  excuse  1 "  or  "  Bo  we 
make  excuse  ?  "  which  is  the  sense  margined  by  them).  The  latter  seems 
to  me  to  yield  a  better  sense  than  the  former ;  but  I  cannot  satisfy  myself 
that  either  suits  the  course  of  the  Apostle's  reasoning  in  the  context.  It 
is  exegetically  a  last  resort  to  take  it  (as  the  Authorised  Version  did,  with 
many  older  and  recent  commentators)  for  a  Middle  used  in  the  Active 
sense  of  "Do  we  surpass?"  No  example  of  this  is  found  in  the  case  of 
this  particular  verb.  But  it  does  occur  in  later  Greek  with  other  verbs  ;  and 
the  assumption  that  it  occurs  here  also,  supported  as  it  is  by  Greek  Fathers, 
appears  to  me  to  offer  the  only  outlet  from  the  difficulty.  I  abide  therefore 
in  this  instance  by  the  Authorised  Version  and  understand  :  Have  we  (Jew  3) 
any  advantage  or  preference  (over  Gentiles)  such  as  can  serve  our  turn  ? 


EVERY  MOUTH  STOPPED.  67 

the  Law  and  to  the  Testimony"  was  a  perfectly  valid 
appeal.  Everywhere  in  the  New  Testament  we  find  that 
its  teachers,  from  our  adorable  Lord  Himself  downwards, 
attach  their  lessons  to  the  Old  Testament,  buttress  their 
doctrine  by  its  authority,  and  treat  it  as  an  unimpeachable 
oracle  of  revelation.  Such  a  reference  to  the  elder  volume  of 
Scripture  could  nowhere  carry  greater  weight  or  apposite- 
ness  than  here,  where  the  design  is  to  convict  the  Jew 
of  being  a  sinner  out  of  that  very  Law  which  he  boasted 
to  be  the  instrument  of  his  justification.  Did  God  then 
in  His  Word  treat  His  Hebrew  people  as  righteous  ?  Was 
the  moral  condition  of  Israel  as  pictured  in  the  divine 
record  a  condition  of  approved  virtue  ?  Had  the  Law  in 
point  of  fact  availed  to  save  the  nation  from  immorality  ? 
Let  the  sacred  books  answer. 

The  Apostle's  Scripture  proof  deserves  a  moment's 
examination.  From  the  current  Greek  translation  of  the 
Old  Testament,  he  cites  with  more  or  less  exactness  six 
different  passages.  But  the  force  of  the  quotation  is  not 
alike  in  them  all.  What  he  starts  with  is  a  very  sweeping 
and  categorical  denial  that  such  a  thing  as  a  righteous 
man  was  to  be  found  on  earth  at  all.  In  the  fourteenth 
Psalm,  Jehovah  is  pictured  as  looking  down  from  His 
celestial  habitation  to  see  if  among  the  human  family 
there  could  be  discovered  so  much  as  one  who  had  set  his 
heart  to  seek  God  and  was  in  every  point  blameless.*  It 
is  the  result  of  this  divine  inspection  which  is  gathered 
up  in  the  strong  words  cited  by  St.  Paul : — • 

"  There  is  none  righteous  :  no,  not  one  ; 
There  is  none  that  understand eth, 

*  This  Psalm  has  possibly  a  greater  emphasis  impressed  upon  it  from 
the  circumstance  that  a  slightly  altered  edition  of  it  recurs  further  on  in 
the  Second  Book  of  the  collection,  where  it  is  numbered  the  fifty-third. 


68      THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

There  is  none  that  seeketh  after  God  ; 
They  have  all  turned  aside  ; 
They  are  together  become  unprofitable  ; 
There  is  none  that  doeth  good,  no,  not  so  much  as  one." 

(R.  V.) 

Of  course,  tlie  value  of  the  passage  for  St.  Paul's  pur- 
pose lies  in  its  wholesale  character :  in  its  condemnation 
of  every  man  without  exception.  No  unusual  degree  of 
wickedness  is  ascribed  to  any  one ;  but  such  a  deviation 
from  godly  paths  and  right  conduct  as  suffices  at  least  to 
condemn  us  is  detected  in  every  case  by  the  awful  eye 
of  Him  who  is  now  our  Witness  and  is  by-and-by  to  be 
our  Judge. 

It  is  otherwise  with  the  next  class  of  quotations.*  If 
Israel  failed  to  exhibit  even  one  single  man  who  so  kept 
God's  law  as  to  be  without  censure,  on  the  other  hand 
it  did  show  at  various  times  a  state  of  private  and  public 
corruption  perfectly  appalling.  Of  this  two  instances  are 
alleged.  First,  from  those  numerous  Psalms  which  are 
believed  with  more  or  less  confidence  to  describe  the 
darker  aspects  of  society  in  the  reign  of  King  David, 
Paul  draws  a  picture  which  is  very  ugly.  The  expressions 
come  from  three  different  Psalms  :  the  fifth,  the  hundred 
and  fortieth  and  the  tenth ;  but  if  they  are  Davidic  they 
refer  in  substance  to  the  same  people,  namely,  the  godless 
faction  who  for  various  reasons  secretly  resented  the  rule 
of  David  and  plotted  against  it : — 

*'  Their  throat  is  an  open  sepulchre  ;  (Psalm  v.  9) 
With  their  tongues  they  have  used  deceit  : 

*  It  is  curious  that  the  whole  cento  of  texts  brought  together  by  St. 
Paul  is  found  in  the  current  text  of  the  Septuagint  at  Psalm  xiv.  (not 
Psalm  liii.).  Thence  it  passed  into  the  Vulgate  and  the  "  Prayer  Book 
Version  "  of  the  Psalms.  I  assume  that  it  was  from  our  Epistle  this  addi- 
tion first  found  its  way  into  the  few  MSS.  of  the  LXX.  where  it  occurs  ; 
though  this  can  scarcely  be  said  to  be  certain. 


EVERY  MOUTH  STOPPED.  69 

The  poison  of  asps  is  under  tlieir  lips  :  (Psalm  cxl.  3). 
Wliose  mouth  is  full  of  cursing  and  bitterness  "  (Psalm  x.  7). 

This  is  a  sketch  of  a  set  of  defeated  men,  held  in  check 
from  open  violence,  but  venting  their  spite  against  God's 
Anointed  by  secret  lies,  imprecations  and  calumnies ;  by- 
word-sins, that  is,  of  the  meanest  and  most  detestable 
character.  Yet  that  was  Israel  during  its  most  heroic  age. 
In  part,  at  least,  that  was  Israel  under  the  most  religious 
of  all  its  kings. 

Turn  next  to  a  later  page  in  Jewish  story — to  the  great 
Prophet  period  adorned  by  the  eloquence  of  Isaiah.  From 
a  very  dark  description  of  the  moral  condition  of  Judea 
in  the  fifty-ninth  chapter  of  that  prophet,  Paul  extracts 
these  few  lines : — 

"  Their  feet  are  swift  to  shed  blood  : 
Destruction  and  misery  are  in  their  ways  : 
And  the  way  of  peace  have  they  not  known  "  (Tsaiah  lix.  7,  8). 

A  few  sentences  before,  Isaiah  had  been  denouncinjr  his 
contemporaries  for  speaking  lies  and  hatching  mischief 
like  the  rebels  of  King  David's  reign;  but  the  special 
feature  of  Hebrew  society  in  the  prophet's  age  was  not 
its  falsehood  but  its  violence.  The  law  was  feeble  and 
the  bonds  of  society  so  relaxed  that  men  openly  rushed 
to  bloodshed  like  one  who  makes  his  feet  swift  for  a  race. 
The  path  of  powerful  criminals  was  strewn  with  rapine, 
carnage  and  grief,  with  the  curses  and  groans  of  the 
common  people  who  were  victims  to  the  great  man's 
cruelty  or  greed.  Those  who  are  acquainted  with  the 
later  Prophets  will  be  able  to  recall  plenty  of  passages 
to  confirm  this  sad  account.  So  little  could  Mosaic  Law 
"  save "  the  people  of  Israel,  or  stanch  at  its  source  the 
spring  of  iniquity,  that  time  after  time  the  depravity  of 
man  ripened  into  states  of  social  demoralisation  which 


70  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

rivalled  the  laxity  of  heathen  manners.  Nor  is  it  any 
wonder  that  the  Law  of  God  proved  too  weak  to  check 
the  overflow  of  wicked  passion,  since  it  had  no  power  to 
plant  in  the  heart  that  reverential  fear  of  God  which  is 
"  the  beginning  of  wisdom "  and  the  basis  of  religion. 
So  St.  Paul  winds  np  his  series  of  Scripture  texts  by 
one  brief  word  which  cuts  to  the  root  of  the  whole  matter. 
The  Law  could  neither  produce  a  solitary  righteous  man, 
nor  hinder  such  a  social  state  as  David  and  Isaiah  depict ; 
for  it  could  not  change  the  deep  underlying  alienation  of 
the  natural  heart  from  God.  Of  the  Hebrews,  the  infallible 
Word  had  to  testify  as  of  other  men : 

"  There  is  no  fear  of  God  before  their  eyes  "  (Psalm  xxxvi.  2). 

It  is  impossible  to  break  the  edge  of  such  Scripture 
evidence  by  alleging  that  it  refers  to  some  one  else  than 
Jews.  What  the  Law  says,  it  addresses  to  those  who  are 
under  it  (v.  19).  The  Old  Testament  is  spoken  to  the 
Old  Testament  people.  It  is  their  sinful  state  which  is 
described  in  such  strong  and  sweeping  language.  But 
the  evidence  carries  an  a  fortiori  application  to  the  pagan 
world.  If  these  were  the  fruits  found  on  the  green  and 
favoured  plant  of  Israel,  God's  vine,  what  could  be  ex- 
pected from  the  dry  stock  of  any  Gentile  race,  like 
Assyria  or  Egypt,  out  in  the  uncultured  wilderness  of 
heathendom  ?  By  such  appalling  practical  proofs  as  have 
now  been  cited,  the  Jew's  mouth  is  shut :  he  stands 
speechless,  because  defenceless,  before  the  tribunal  of  the 
righteous  Judge.  Much  more  is  the  Gentile  dumb.  The 
demonstration  is  complete.  Every  mouth  is  stopped.  The 
whole  world  is  not  arraigned  only,  but  convicted.  All 
men  are  guilty  before  God. 

Perhaps  some  readers  are  aware  of  a  feeling  like  dis- 


EVERY  MOUTH  STOPPED.  7 1 

appointment  at  reaching  tliis  result.  Not  that  they  doubt 
the  native  depravity  of  mankind,  or  the  certainty  that  all 
men,  left  to  tli  em  selves,  will  go  very  far  astray  from 
righteousness.  But  it  may  be  said.  All  men  were  not 
left  to  themselves.  God  interposed  with  a  holy  and 
awful  Law.  He  took  one  race  under  His  own  moral  edu- 
cation. He  taught  them  carefully  the  way  of  duty,  and 
did  what  was  possible  to  fence  them  in  it  and  cut  off  all 
temptation  to  wander  out  of  it.  Surely  the  average 
moral  standard  was  greatly  raised  within  that  sheltered 
Hebrew  commonwealth ;  and  many  individual  Hebrews 
succeeded  in  leading  very  virtuous  and  devout  lives, 
"  in  all  the  ordinances  of  the  Law  blameless."  Does 
it  not  sound  a  little  hard  to  say  that  not  one  of  them 
was  good  enough  to  justify  his  life  in  the  sight  of 
God  ?  Is  this  not  like  confessing  that  the  whole  Mosaic 
system  of  religious  training  and  moral  legislation  was 
a  failure? — that  it  missed  its  aim  and  broke  down  at 
the  very  point  where  it  was  of  most  consequence  to 
succeed  ? 

This  opens  up  a  number  of  grave  questions  with  which 
St.  Paul  will  have  to  deal  further  on  in  his  letter.  How 
far  Israel  failed  to  realise  its  calling,  and  why  it  did  so, 
and  what  section  of  it  did  not  fail,  are  points  to  be  dis- 
cussed in  later  chapters.  But  to  put  us  in  a  right  atti- 
tude for  judging  in  this  whole  matter,  it  is  of  the  first 
consequence  to  see  what  the  purpose  of  God  was  in  giving 
His  Law  at  all.  You  cannot  judge  whether  the  Mosaic 
legislation  was  a  failure  or  not,  until  you  know  what  it 
was  intended  to  accomplish.  Now,  the  express  teaching 
of  St.  Paul  is  that  God  did  not  expect  the  Jews  to 
attain  such  a  righteousness  as  would  justify  them  at  the 
last,  by  their  own  attempts  to  keep  that  Mosaic  Law. 
If  its    intention   had    been   that   a    conscientious   Jew, 


72  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

striving  to  observe  all  tliat  the  Law  told  him  to  do,  should 
thereby  become  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  own  virtue 
free  from  blame  so  as  to  win  acceptance  with  the  Eternal 
Judge,  then,  certainly,  it  would  have  missed  its  aim ; 
since,  as  St.  Paul  has  shown,  no  Jew  ever  won  divine 
acceptance  in  that  way. 

To  take  the  Mosaic  Law  in  this  fashion  for  a  path 
of  salvation,  a  rule  which  a  man  might  keep  closely 
enough  to  merit  thereby  eternal  life — had  been  the  early 
blunder  of  Paul's  own  upbringing.  That  was  what  he 
himself  once  thought.  That  had  made  him  as  a  youth 
^'exceedingly  zealous  for  the  traditions  of  his  fathers, 
touching  the  righteousness  which  is  in  the  Law,  found 
blameless."*  But  (as  I  said)  the  great  discovery  which 
revolutionised  his  life  was  this,  that  God  never  meant  him 
to  be  justified  by  keeping  the  Mosaic  or  any  other  law — 
not  by  trying  to  keep  laws  of  conduct  at  all,  but  in  quite 
another  way.  "  By  the  works  of  the  Law  " — works  which 
a  man  does  in  order  to  keep  a  prescribed  rule  of  duty — 
"shall  no  flesh  be  justified  in  the  sight  of  God"  (v.  20). 
If  it  be  asked,  why  ?  the  reason  is  given  us  in  another 
passage  of  St.  Paul's  writings,  where  he  says :  "  If  there 
had  been  a  law  given  which  could  make  alive,  then  indeed 
righteousness  would  have  been  by  the  Law"  (Gal.  iii.  21). 
What  sinful  men  want  is  life,  the  will  and  the  power  to 
do  what  is  right :  for,  as  we  find  ourselves,  we  are  dead 
to  God  and  to  His  service.  We  may  know  what  is  good, 
we  may  approve  it,  we  may  even  wish  to  do  it.  Yet 
when  the  stress  of  temptation  comes,  desire  proves  too 
strong  for  virtue.  We  are  swept  away  by  our  baser  pas- 
sions, and  carried  captive,  like  one  beaten  in  battle,  by 
the  conquering  strength  of  sin.  The  Law  is  not  able  to 
help  us  here.  Moses'  Law  does  not ;  no  law  can.  For, 
*  See  Gal.  i.  14  and  Phil.  iii.  5,  6. 


EVERY  MOUTH  STOPPED.  y  7, 

as  Paul  says,  a  law  is  not  intended  to  give  life :  it  is  only- 
intended  to  regulate  life. 

I  presume  that  canon  of  St.  Paul's  will  be  found  to  hold 
even  of  physical  life  on  the  surface  of  our  globe.  Men  of 
science  are  at  this  moment  doing  their  best,  by  applying 
the  ascertained  laws  of  chemistry  and  biology,  to  pro- 
duce life.  They  would,  if  they  could,  find  a  physical  law 
which  should  give  physical  life.  How  if  it  should  turn 
out,  in  physics,  that  material  laws  are  given  to  regulate 
life  where  the  great  Life-Giver  has  first  created  it;  but 
that  no  law  of  material  forces  can  possibly  originate  life 
out  of  death  ?  In  the  moral  sphere  it  certainly  is  so.  You 
tell  a  man  he  ought  to  love  God  with  his  whole  heart. 
That  is  a  law,  and  a  great  one.  But  suppose  the  man's 
whole  heart  is  filled  with  dislike  of  God  and  suspicion  of 
Him  and  dread  of  Him,  will  it  mend  things  to  tell  him 
he  ought  to  love  ?  The  love  of  the  man's  heart  is  dead, 
and  law  cannot  make  it  alive.  Or  you  legislate — "  Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  It  is  good,  it  is 
beautiful.  But  I  do  not  love  my  neighbour.  I  am  a 
narrow-hearted,  shallow  creature,  who  wants  to  get  the 
best  of  everything  for  myself,  and  I  cannot  let  go  my 
private  good  for  the  benefit  of  any  neighbour.  Of  what 
use  is  your  beautiful  law  to  me  ?  It  condemns  me.  Yes ; 
and  in  condemning,  it  exasperates  me.  But  it  cannot 
change  my  selfishness  into  noble-hearted  generosity.  It 
has  no  power  to  give  me  the  life  of  kindness.  Here  lies 
the  essential  infirmity  of  a  law.  It  takes  for  granted  that 
there  is  moral  and  religious  life  in  the  person  addressed 
— a  will  and  a  power  to  do  what  is  bidden.  If  there 
is,  all  is  well.  The  law  is  very  useful.  It  informs 
the  willing  spirit  how  the  Lord  would  have  it  act,  and 
it  serves  as  a  bank  on  either  hand  to  guide  the  stream 
of  generous  impulse  into  serviceable  channels.     But  when 


74  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

there  is  no  impulse  to  good,  no  will  to  do  right,  what 
can  the  law  do  ?  "  It  is  weak  through  the  flesh " 
(Rom.  viii.  3). 

Something  surely  it  must  be  able  to  do.  Else  why  was 
it  given  to  sinful  men  at  all  ?  St.  Paul  has  pointed  out 
our  mistake  :  the  Law  was  not  meant  to  lead  to  righteous- 
ness, because  it  could  not  give  spiritual  life.  St.  Paul 
goes  on  to  correct  it :  the  Law  was  meant  to  fill  a  far 
humbler  office — it  brought  us  a  better  knowledge  of  our 
sin! 

"  Better  knowledge  of  sin "  ?  Yes,  that  at  least  we 
get  through  knowing  God's  Law.  When  we  are  told  what 
we  ought  to  do,  we  learn  that  we  are  not  doing  what  we 
ought.  The  faintest  spark  of  natural  conscience  in  a 
savage  bosom  serves  this  end  at  least,  that  the  barbarian's 
grosser  acts  of  treachery  or  cruelty  seem  evil  even  to  him- 
self The  educated  conscience  of  an  old  Greek  or  Roman 
imposed  upon  him  a  severer  standard  and  made  him 
ashamxed  of  less  flagrant  crimes.  Moses'  nobler  code, 
given  by  Jehovah  Himself,  trained  the  Hebrew  people  by 
degrees  to  regard  as  sinful  practices  which  neighbouring 
nations  called  innocent,  and  exalted  every  instinctive  vice 
of  the  blood  into  the  express  transgression  of  a  recorded 
statute.  The  Christian  morality  which  we  have  learnt 
from  the  New  Testament  has  made  the  modern  conscience 
quicker  than  ever  to  detect,  and  louder  than  ever  in  con- 
demning, what  is  false,  dishonourable,  impure,  ungenerous. 
Thus  each  addition  to  revealed  Law  widens  men's  know- 
ledge of  what  is  sinful,  and  pushes  forward  the  frontier  of 
the  forbidden  a  little  nearer  to  that  ideal  line  which  God's 
own  nature  prescribes.  "Through  the  Law  cometh  the 
knowledge  of  sin." 

Again  :  when  a  law  has  succeeded  in  educating  one's 
conscience  to  recognise  that  what  is  forbidden  is  in  itself 


EVERY  MOUTH  STOPPED.  75 

evil  or  that  what  is  commanded  is  right,  there  follows  a 
certain  desire  to  keep  that  law — an  effort  even  after  keep- 
ing it.  We  cannot  approve  what  is  good  and  not  wish  to 
pursue  it.  The  moral  pressure  thus  put  upon  a  man's 
natural  likings  serves,  in  many  an  instance,  to  reveal  to 
himself  his  moral  impotence.  The  good  he  fain  would  do 
in  his  better  moods  he  fails  to  do  in  the  moment  of  temp- 
tation; and  when  the  recoil  comes,  and  desire  has  burnt 
itself  down  to  white,  cold  ash,  and  the  Law  awakes  afresh 
within  the  conscience  to  judge  the  man  for  that  weak  and 
wicked  yielding  to  improper  desire,  then  comes  a  new  and 
very  bitter  "  knowledge  of  sin."  It  is  the  knowledge  of 
sin  as  a  strong  thing,  stronger  than  I  am — a  hateful 
hostile  power  or  alien  despot,  which  has  entrenched  itself 
within  my  nature  and  lords  it  there  over  everything  that 
is  wholesome  in  me.  This  knowledge  of  sin  also  comes 
by  the  Law. 

Suppose  further  that  a  man  is  become  so  far  a  creature 
of  the  Law  that  through  long  education  he  has  been  trained 
to  walk  contentedly  within  its  close  fences — has  got  used 
to  curb  his  temper  and  choke  down  his  passions,  and 
never  to  explode  with  inward  fume,  but  always  wear  a 
smooth,  decorous  face ;  suppose  he  is  thus  all  that  the 
Law  can  make  him,  irreproachable  in  the  presence  of 
society,  fair-spoken,  scrupulous,  proper,  respectable — 
"  touching  the  righteousness  which  is  in  the  Law,  blame- 
less " — why,  then  he  is  only  on  the  road  to  a  still  more 
profound  "  knowledge  of  sin."  Such  a  man  may  discover, 
and  if  he  is  very  honest  and  thorough  he  will  admit  to 
himself,  that  deep  down  beneath  this  blameless  exterior, 
the  old  passions  are  not  quenched,  nor  the  old  self-will 
slain.  He  will  admit  that  in  doing  violence  to  his  tastes, 
he  has  not  really  changed  them.  Although  he  puts  a 
prudent  restraint  upon  himself,  he  is  the  very  same  man 


76  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

as  ever.  He  has  merely  drilled  himself  into  outward 
propriety,  but  at  the  root  remains  ungodly.  Is  it  unfair 
to  say  that  such  righteousness  is  little  better  than  a  mask, 
useful  in  society,  but  sure  to  be  detected  by  the  judg- 
ment of  Heaven  ? — that  the  soul  of  such  a  man  resembles  a 
volcano  over  which  the  lava  has  in  the  meantime  cooled  ? 
What  terrific  knowledge  of  sin  is  here !  What  a  discovery 
of  the  incurableness  of  the  heart's  evil !  What  a  revela- 
tion of  the  impotence  of  law  and  the  unattainableness  of 
genuine  righteousness  under  any  system  of  legal  repres- 
sion !  Surely  by  the  Law,  do  as  you  will,  there  is  no  path 
to  a  satisfying  righteousness  in  the  sight  of  God,  but  only 
to  a  deeper  and  ever  deeper  knowledge  of  human  sin ! 


(  11  ) 


CHAPTER  VII. 
PA  UVS   EVANGEL. 

"  But  now  apart  from  tho  law  a  righteousness  of  God  hath  been  manifested, 
being  witnessed  by  the  law  and  the  prophets  ;  even  the  righteousness  of  God 
through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  unto  all  them  that  believe  ;  for  there  is  no 
distinction  ;  for  all  have  sinned,  and  fall  short  of  the  glory  of  God  ;  being 
justified  freely  by  his  grace  through  the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus  : 
whom  God  set  forth  to  bo  a  propitiation,  through  faith,  by  his  blood,  to  shew 
his  righteousness,  because  of  the  passing  over  of  the  sins  done  aforetime,  in 
the  forbearance  of  God  ;  for  the  shewing,  I  say,  of  his  righteousness  at  this 
present  season :  that  he  might  himself  be  just,  and  the  justitier  of  him  that 
hath  faith  in  Jesus."— KoM.  iii.  21-26. 

rPHE  reasoning  of  the  Apostle  down  to  this  point  has 
been  preparative,  or,  as  I  may  say,  destructive.  Its 
object  has  been  to  clear  the  ground  for  the  doctrine 
which  formed  his  message  to  mankind.  Before  we  hear 
him  expound  his  own  novel  and  positive  teaching,  let  us 
recall  to  mind  what  the  precise  ground  is  that  he  has 
cleared.  It  is  hardly  a  sufficient  statement  of  his  scope  to 
say  that  he  has  proved  all  men  to  be  sinners.  I  should 
rather  say  that  this  did  not  need  to  be  proved.  What  he 
has  really  been  labouring  to  show  ever  since  his  argument 
began  at  i.  i8,  is  this  :  that  nothing  hitherto  known  or 
revealed  from  heaven  in  the  way  of  religious  truth  had 
possessed  any  power  to  deliver  sinful  men  from  their  sins 
— neither  the  truths  of  natural  law  in  the  conscience  of 
heathens  nor  the  truths  of  Mosaic  Law  in  the  Scriptures 
of  the  Jew ;  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  every  particle  of 


78  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOBDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

religious  liglit  had  only  brouglit  into  more  vivid  relief  the 
hopeless  sinfulness  of  men  and  their  inexcusable  guilt. 
This,  I  repeat,  though  very  needful  to  be  shown,  is  only 
negative  or  destructive  teaching,  preparing  us  to  receive 
what  new  and  positive  truth  the  Gospel  may  bring.  Its 
effect  is  to  shut  every  soul  of  man  up  in  one  common 
prison-house  of  hopeless  condemnation — guilty,  and  not 
able  to  see  any  ray  of  hope  that  he  shall  ever  be  acquitted 
from  his  guilt  (iii.  19,  20). 

^'  But  now,"  says  St.  Paul ; — at  this  point  in  the  argu- 
ment, or  perhaps,*  at  this  point  in  the  development  of 
human  history,  when,  heathenism  and  Judaism  having 
both  alike  run  their  course  to  its  eud  and  proved  their 
practical  helplessness  to  deliver  man,  the  whole  world  lay 
convicted  by  the  terrible  logic  of  facts  as  a  world  that 
could  not  justify  itself :  "  now  "  at  last  there  enters  into 
history  God's  own  method  for  justifying  f  sinful  men, 
"  apart  from  His  Law."  What  that  method  of  justification 
is,  we  shall  be  presently  told.  Only  notice  beforehand  in 
what  sense  it  can  be  called  new.  Not  that  it  had  never 
been  heard  of  before,  or  as  if  no  inkling  of  it  whatever  had 
reached  man's  ears  during  the  long  past.  No ;  for,  says 
Paul,  "  it  was  borne  witness  to  by  the  Law  and  the  Pro- 
phets." That  is,  the  whole  Old  Testament  Scripture — 
especially  the  typical  institutions  of  the  Mosaic  sacrificial 

*  j'l'j't  in  verse  21  may  be  either  logical  or  temporal.  The  general 
reference  throughout  this  discussion  to  the  past  experience  of  mankind 
and  to  the  new  "  revelation  "  of  the  Gospel,  inclines  me  rather  to  prefer 
the  latter. 

t  The  biKaLoavvT)  Beov  of  verse  21  looks  back  to  and  is  identical  with  the 
SiKatoavPT]  deov  of  i.  17,  and  must  be  taken  in  the  same  sense.  What  that 
sense  here  is  appears  from  verse  24,  which,  as  I  have  already  shown  at 
page  15,  is  virtually  Paul's  own  definition  of  the  phrase.  It  is  God's  way 
of  justifying  men  gratuitously  by  His  grace  through  the  redem.ption  that  is 
in  Christ  Jesus.  In  i.  1 7  that  was  said  to  be  "revealed  "  in  the  Gospel. 
Here  it  is  said  to  be  "  now  made  plain." 


PAUL  S  EVANGEL.  79 

and  ceremonial  system  and  the  messages  of  the  theocratic 
prophets  who,  age  after  age,  sustained  Israel's  hope  in  a 
coming  Deliverer — had  testified  to  it  beforehand.  Their 
written  testimony  remains  unto  this  day.*  God's  Gospel 
method  of  justification  stands  "apart"  indeed  from  the 
Mosaic  Law  of  works,  but  it  is  by  no  means  unknown 
to  Hebrew  revelation.  Before  the  Gospel  was  disclosed 
there  was  a  hidden  Gospel  even  under  the  Old  Covenant. 
The  new  thing  is  that  now  what  was  obscurely  borne  wit- 
ness to  has  been  made  open  and  clear.-|-  God's  secret  stands 
discovered.  Only  not,  in  the  first  instance,  through  a 
verbal  message  or  doctrine  preached  up  and  down  the 
Eoman  Empire  by  St.  Paul  and  other  Christian  mission- 
aries. For  the  revelation  of  God's  mind  by  a  spoken  word 
is  not  the  earliest  thing.  His  earliest  discovery  of  His 
meaning  is  by  deed  and  fact.  What  Paul  had  to  preach 
was  there  in  awful  acts  of  God's  own  doing,  before  either 
Paul  or  another  opened  his  lips  to  preach  at  all.  The  fact 
of  the  incarnation  of  the  Son  by  superhuman  birth,  the 
fact  of  His  identification  with  fallen  men  as  their  Head, 
the  fact  of  His  separation  and  devotement  by  the  Father 
to  be  our  propitiatory  Victim,  tlie  fact  of  His  self-oblation 
to  sacrificial  death,  the  fact  of  God's  recognition  of  His 
atonement  as  adequate  by  His  resurrection  to  life,  the 
fact  of  His  elevation  to  the  throne  for  the  completion  of 
His  work  as  man's  Eedeemer :  these  immense  facts-  or 
deeds,  done  by  the  Eternal  God  Himself,  constitute  the 
Gospel. J  They  manifest,  even  without  words,  and  far 
more  plainly  than  words  could  do,  how  God  is  just  when 

*  This  point  is  to  receive  full  proof  and  illustration  from  the  Apostle 
further  on. 

t  "  Novum  Testamentum  in  Vetere  latet  ;  Vetus  in  Novo  patet." 
— Augustine. 

+  Hence  our  four  historical  records  of  them  are,  with  perfect  accuracy 
styled  "  the  Gosptls." 


8o  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

He  justifies  the  sinner  who  trusts  in  Christ.  If  no  tongue 
of  Evangelist  or  Apostle  had  ever  spoken,  these  facts 
would  have  stood  just  the  same  as  they  stand  now,  and  the 
way  of  our  justification  would  have  been  in  point  of  fact 
as  secure  and  open  as  it  is  to-day.  So  that  St.  Paul  could 
say  with  absolute  correctness  (verse  25):  "God  Himself 
did  set  Christ  Jesus  publicly  forth  to  view  as  a  propitiation 
by  His  blood." 

I  think  if  we  fasten  attention  upon  this  revelation  of 
the  Gospel  by  God  Himself  in  divine  facts  as  the  first 
thing  and  the  chief  thing,  which  Apostles  and  other 
preachers  had  only  to  declare  abroad  by  their  words  in 
order  that  men  might  know  what  God  had  done  and 
believe  it,  we  shall  get  to  understand  why  St.  Paul  in 
these  very  weighty  verses  enters  so  little  into  any  expla- 
nation of  what  I  may  call  the  theology  of  salvation  or  its 
theory.  There  is  here  no  discussion  of  either  the  doctrine 
of  atonement  or  the  doctrine  of  justification,  from  an 
abstract  point  of  view.  His  exposition,  on  the  contrary, 
is  all  intensely  concrete.  It  deals  with  actual  facts.  It 
simply  states  how  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus  has  perma- 
nently modified  the  previous  attitude  of  God  toward  sinful 
men.  In  Paul's  view  the  appearance  and  death  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  central  fact  of  history.  It  serves  to  explain 
what  was  ambiguous  or  open  to  misapprehension  in  God's 
treatment  of  men  before  it  happened.  It  has  put  God  in 
a  position  to  treat  men  otherwise  now.  All  this  is  not 
theory  but  fact. 

Let  us  inquire  a  little  more  closely  into  his  meaning. 

The  history  of  God's  relations  with  human  sin  breaks 
into  two :  before  Christ  and  after  Christ.  The  death  of 
Christ,  which  marks  the  point  of  division,  is  at  the  same 
time  the  key  to  explain  both. 

I.  Antecedently  to  the  death  of  Christ,  the  sins  of  men 


PAUL'S  EVANGEL.  8  I 

were  passed  over  in  the  forbearance  of  God  (ver.  25).  That 
is  to  say,  before  Christ  came  and  died,  God,  in  point  of 
fact,  suffered  the  sins  of  men  to  go  by  unavenged.  His 
retributive  justice  appeared  to  sleep.  He  "  winked  at  the 
times  of  ignorance,"  and  overlooked  offences  for  which  no 
sufficient  atonement  had  been  offered,  nor  any  sufficient 
penalty  endured.  So  far  was  this  strange  toleration 
carried,  that  the  very  justice  of  the  Divine  Judge  came 
in  some  danger  to  be  called  in  question.  It  was  far  from 
apparent  that  God  meant  to  exact  any  strict  satisfaction 
for  breaches  of  His  law.  It  is  not  true  indeed,  that  no 
signs  of  divine  wrath  at  sin  were  to  be  seen,  or  that  no 
punishment  ever  overtook  a  criminal.  Yet  the  execution 
in  this  life  of  retribution  upon  wrong-doing  has  always 
been  so  uncertain  in  its  occurrence,  and  at  its  worst  has 
fallen  so  far  beneath  sin's  desert,  that,  were  there  nothincj 
to  be  feared  in  a  hereafter  nor  any  judgment  to  come,  men 
really  could  not  affirm  that  the  world  was  ruled  on  prin- 
ciples of  perfect  righteousness.  In  the  providence  of  the 
world,  vengeance  limps  but  tardily  in  the  footsteps  of 
crime ;  while,  not  to  speak  of  the  impenitent  who  go  un- 
punished, what  shall  we  say  of  pre-Christian  penitents 
who  asked  pardon  for  their  sins,  yet  found  no  expiation 
for  them  ?  The  blood  of  bulls  and  goats  could  never  take 
away  sin.  Even  under  Mosaic  ritual  every  year  saw  a  fresh 
remembrance  made  of  sins,  which,  often  confessed,  were 
never  actually  purged  away.  The  divine  policy  (so  to  say) 
was  to  let  sin  pass,  neither  avenged  nor  atoned  for,  leaving 
still  an  open  reckoning — a  reckoning  which  grew  year  after 
year  and  age  after  age  the  longer  and  more  heavy,  till  men 
might  have  been  excused  if  they  began  to  doubt  whether 
vengeance  upon  evil  works  was  ever  to  be  executed  at  all.* 
At  last,  in  the  end  of  the  ages,  a  day  came  when  God 

*  See  Eccl.  viii.  1 1  ;  and  cf.  passages  like  Ps.  xciv.,  or  Ixxiii.  or  Iviii. 

F 


82  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

Himself  did  a  thing  wMcli  has  for  ever  cleared  His 
clouded  administration  and  vindicated  His  judicial  righte- 
ousness. At  last,  He  held  forth  to  public  gaze  (irpoWeTo, 
ver.  25),  an  expiation  of  sin  by  blood  which  did  satisfy  jus- 
tice and  demonstrate  in  a  way  too  terrible  to  be  mistaken 
the  severe  impartial  rectitude  of  the  divine  judgments. 
The  death  of  Jesus  Christ  by  sacrificial  blood-shedding, 
as  a  Victim  offered  in  expiation  of  guilt,  is  "  set  forth  "  as  a 
public  act  done  by  Almighty  God  Himself  for  the  illustra- 
tion of  His  own  justice  {eU  evSei^cv  r?}?  BtKaLoavi^r]^  avTov). 
The  word  "propitiation"  (or  propitiatory,  IXaarripiov) 
which  Paul  employs  to  describe  Christ  Jesus  as  ''  set  forth 
for  the  illustration  of  justice,"  may  either  mean  a  victim 
offered  in  sacrifice  for  the  recovery  of  divine  favour,  or  it 
may  refer  to  that  golden  lid  of  the  ark  in  the  Jewish  Holy 
of  Holies,  where  God  sat  enthroned  and  propitious  because 
on  it  was  yearly  sprinkled  the  blood  of  an  atoning  sacrifice. 
Under  either  rendering,  the  substantial  sense  remains 
identically  the  same.  The  death  of  Christ  is  in  either 
case  the  one  sacrifice  through  which  the  sins  of  the  world 
have  been  expiated  and  God  has  been  enabled  to  extend 
favour  to  His  guilty  creatures.  This  solemn  and  unparal- 
leled act  of  expiation,  where  it  is  not  any  meaner  blood 
than  that  of  the  Eternal  Son — come  in  flesh  for  that  very 
end — which  flows  for  the  sins  of  the  people,  is  at  the  same 
time  the  most  impressive  exhibition  of  the  divine  ven- 
geance against  sin.  Eather  than  that  sins,  passed  over  so 
long  in  the  exercise  of  forbearance,  should  go  altogether 
unavenged,  God  ofiered  His  Son  for  their  expiation.  By 
no  other  act  could  He  so  loudly  declare  His  inextinguish- 
able hatred  of  sin  or  the  inflexible  justice  of  His  sentence 
upon  it.  By  this  one  act.  He  has  cut  ofi"  from  men  the 
temptation  to  misconstrue  His  earlier  toleration  of  sins, 
His  forbearance  to  punish  them,  or  His  willingness  to 


PAUL'S  EVANGEL.  S^ 

forgive  them.  Then,  in  the  antecedent  ages,  He  did  pre- 
termit sin  in  His  forbearance  ;  but  it  was  only  because 
He  had  purposed  in  His  heart  one  day  to  offer  for  it  a 
satisfaction  such  as  this.  He  never  meant  to  make  liglit 
of  it,  to  wink  at  it  for  ever,  or  to  pardon  it  without  ade- 
quate satisfaction.  So  far  from  that — this  was  what  He 
meant.  To  this  sacrifice  He  looked  forward  all  alon^r. 
For  this  He  could  hold  His  peace  through  long  centuries 
under  the  injurious  suspicion  that  He  was  a  God  who  sat 
loose  to  law  and  justice  ;  because  He  knew  that  one  day 
the  awful  cross  of  His  own  Son  would  silence  every  cavil 
and  give  to  the  universe  emphatic  demonstration  that  He 
is  a  just  God,  who  will  by  no  means  clear  the  guilty. 

II.  Next,  from  looking  at  the  bearing  of  Christ's  death 
upon  the  time  past,  let  us  look  at  its  bearing  on  "  this 
present  season."  The  same  public  satisfaction  for  sin, 
made  by  God  in  the  face  of  the  world,  which  is  adequate 
to  explain  His  former  indulgence  to  past  sin,  is  adequate 
to  justify  Him  in  forgiving  sin  now  (verse  26),  Before 
Christ  came,  God's  attitude  to  sin  was  simply  provisional. 
It  was  an  attitude  of  forbearance ;  it  was  pretermission. 
More  than  that  it  could  not  be,  because  no  proper  satis- 
faction for  sin  had  as  yet  been  offered.  So  much  even  as 
that  it  could  not  have  been,  unless  a  proper  satisfaction 
had  been  about  to  be  offered.  But  now,  since  Christ  has 
actually  died,  God  does  not  deal  with  sinners  only  after 
a  provisional  or  temporary  fashion.  He  has  no  need  to 
"  wink  at "  sin  as  He  used  to  do,  and  pass  it  by.  He  no 
longer  holds  out  to  penitents  as  He  used  to  do  a  hope 
that  it  will  one  day  become  possible  for  Him  to  blot  their 
sins  finally  and  for  ever  out  of  sight  and  memory.  For 
He  is  now  as  able  to  deal  finally  and  effectually  with  sin 
as  He  will  ever  be.  Justice  has  received  all  the  satis- 
faction it   needs  or   can   ask   for.      Full   due   has  been 


84  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

rendered  to  the  broken  law.  No  shade  of  suspicion,  whether 
of  feebleness  or  of  injustice,  can  rest  upon  the  divine 
character,  supposing  God  should  at  once  and  absolutely 
acquit  any  guilty  man  for  whose  guilt  Christ  has  made 
complete  atonement.  Now,  therefore,  God  is  in  a  position, 
not  to  pretermit  sins  only,  but  to  remit  them;  not  to 
suspend  the  sentence,  but  to  abrogate  it ;  not  to  promise 
forgiveness  merely,  but  to  confer  it.  His  justice  is  as 
much  vindicated  from  the  charge  of  making  light  of  sin 
when  He  acquits  the  penitent  believer  to-day  from  all 
condemnation,  as  when  long  ago  He  passed  over  "the 
transgressions  that  were  under  the  first  covenant."  For 
there  stands  in  the  centre  of  history  that  cross  which  has  for 
ever  magnified  the  Law  and  illustrated  the  justice  of  God 
alike  in  His  ancient  forbearance  and  in  His  Gospel  grace. 

This  new  attitude  into  which  God  the  Judge  has  been 
placed  by  the  historical  fact  of  Christ's  death  is  of  so  much 
moment — is,  in  fact,  so  essentially  the  Pauline  Gospel — 
that  it  is  worth  while  to  trace  it  out  in  a  little  ampler 
detail.  Still  following  closely  St.  Paul's  guidance  in  the 
text,  I  distinguish  these  following  points  : — 

In  the  first  place,  the  propitiation  instituted  by  God  in 
His  Son's  sacrificial  death  having  been  amply  adequate  to 
vindicate  divine  justice,  without  any  further  exaction  of 
penalty  from  sinners,  Christ's  death  becomes  obviously  our 
redemption.  That  is  to  say,  it  serves  the  purpose  of  a 
price  paid  for  our  ransom,  or  an  offering  in  consideration  of 
which  we  who  were  held  in  custody  as  sentenced  prisoners 
of  justice  may  now  go  free.  The  Son  of  Man  has  given 
His  life  (in  His  own  words)  as  a  ransom  price  in  the  stead 
of  many ;  and  that  atoning  ransom  being  adequate,  we 
have  "  redemption  through  His  blood — even  the  forgive- 
ness of  sins."*     So  that  it  is  so  far  from  being  unjust  in 

*  Cf.  Matt.  XX.  28  with  i  Tim.  ii.  6  j  and  Eph.  i.  7  with  Col.  i.  14. 


Paul's  evangel.  85 

God  to  acquit  or  declare  free  from  cliarge  and  doom  of  sin, 
those  for  whom  Christ's  death  is  pleaded,  that  it  would 
be  plainly  unjust  to  do  anything  else.  The  Deliverer 
has  paid  the  price  of  blood  for  forfeited  lives  of  guilty 
men ;  *  and  justice  herself  will  now  fling  wide  open  her 
prison-gates,  tear  across  her  handwriting  of  condemna- 
tion, and  proclaim  the  ransomed  to  be  justified  from  sin. 
This  St.  Paul  terms  "the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ 
Jesus." 

In  the  second  place,  let  God  justify  whom  He  will  on 
the  ground  of  this  redemption  by  the  expiating  blood  of 
His  Son,  such  a  justifying  of  the  guilty  must  be  entirely 
a  gratuitous  act  on  His  part;  undeserved,  unbought  by 
themselves  ;  a  boon  of  pure  and  sovereign  grace  (cf.  Scopeau 
rfj  avTov  j(apLTL,  ver.  24).  It  must  be  so,  because  it  is 
obviously  independent  of  any  action  of  men's  own,  and 
depends  solely  upon  God's  action  on  their  behalf  in  the 
passion  of  His  Son.  It  turns  upon  that  solitary  and 
transcendent  deed  of  the  Eternal  Judge,  which  He  did 
when  once,  in  the  midst  of  the  human  ages,  He  condemned 
sin  in  the  flesh  of  Christ,  and  set  forth  Christ  Jesus  as  a 
propitiation  in  His  own  blood.  That  act  was  a  concession 
to  justice.  It  manifested  the  judicial  impartiality  and 
uprightness  of  the  Lawgiver.  But  it  was  done  at  the 
bidding  of  love  for  the  condemned,  and  its  issue  is  grace 
— free,  gratuitous,  unstinted  grace  to  the  undeserving, 
God  must  be  just ;  more,  He  must  be  shown  to  be  just : 
but  He  chose  this  way  of  manifesting  His  justice,  that 
through  it  He  might  also  manifest  mercy;  and  mercy 
rejoiceth  over  judgment. 

In  the  third  place,  a  way  of  being  justified  which  is 
entirely  gratuitous,  hanging  not  on  man's  desert  but  on 

*  Of.  the  use  of  \vTpa.  in  Num.  xxxv.  31  (LXX.)  speaking  of  the 
murderers  for  whose  blood  no  ransom  was  to  be  accepted. 


86  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

God's  grace,  must  be  impartial  and  catholic.  It  is  offered 
on  such  easy  terms,  because  on  no  harder  terms  could  help- 
less and  condemned  men  receive  it.  But  all  men  are 
equally  condemned  and  helpless.  This  St.  Paul  has  of  late 
been  busy  proving.  Heathen  or  Jew,  there  is  no  distinc- 
tion between  men  (ver.  22)  such  as  could  limit  a  gratuitous 
righteousness  to  one  set  of  them  rather  than  to  another. 
They  have  equally  failed  to  attain  the  reward  of  righteous- 
ness by  their  own  works.  All  of  them  alike  sinned.  All 
alike  have  missed  or  fallen  short  of  that  praise  which  those 
who  are  righteous  in  their  own  merit  deserve  from  God. 
Therefore  they  must  be  justified,  if  they  are  justified  at 
all,  on  a  ground  which  cuts  away  every  distinction  of 
better  or  worse  among  them,  of  more  deserving  or  less 
deserving.  Bring  men  back  to  stand  together  on  a  com- 
mon ground  as  merely  guilty  sinners,  and  you  leave  abso- 
lutely no  room  for  choice  amongst  us.  A  righteousness 
which  is  given  away  gratuitously  to  the  guilty,  must  be 
meant  for  all  and  offered  to  all — without  distinction.* 

Yes,  to  all  men,  that  is  to  say,  who  will  trust  in  it 
(ver.  26).  For,  fourth,  there  is  a  limiting  condition  of  an 
inward  subjective  nature — just  because  there  is  a  limiting 
condition  of  an  outward  nature.  Gratuitous  justification 
has  been  rendered  possible  through  the  redeeming  death 
of  Jesus  Christ.  That  is  the  limiting  channel  through 
which  alone  it  can  reach  us.  That  is  the  solitary  act  of 
God  on  the  ground  of  which  it  became  historically  possible 
for  God  to  justify  any.  For  this  very  reason  He  can  justify 
those  only  who  trust  to  that  ground  for  it,  and  consent  to  re- 
ceive it  through  that  channel. f    Our  justification  is  limited 

*  This  appears  from  the  words  in  ver.  22,  ets  iravras  {Kal  eirl  Tavras,  if 
this  addition  is  to  be  trusted)  .  .  ,  .  6v  yap  ecriv  diaaToXri. 

t  It  is  always  to  be  understood,  of  course,  that  statements  of  this  de- 
scription apply  only  to  hearers  of  the  Gospel  who  are  in  a  position  either 
to  receive  or  to  reject  its  offer.     They  leave  entirely  out  of  view  the  case 


PAUL'S  EVANGEL.  87 

to  faith  in  Christ  as  its  inward  condition  just  because 
it  is  limited  to  the  work  of  Christ  as  its  external  basis. 
Our  faith  is  the  natural  counterpart  to  Christ's  atonement. 
It  is  our  response  to  His  sacrifice ;  it  is  our  acceptance  of 
God's  terms.  God  offers  to  justify  us,  but  He  does  so  only 
because  Christ  has  propitiated  for  our  sins.  On  that  great 
transaction  He  takes  His  stand ;  since  solely  on  the  ground 
of  it  can  He  make  such  an  overture  of  grace.  We,  there- 
fore, in  dealing  with  His  offer  must  deal  with  it  under  the 
same  restrictions.  It  is  an  offer  to  justify  us  on  the 
footing  of  Christ's  propitiation;  for  on  no  other  footing 
could  God  justify  us.  If  we  accept  His  offer,  we  consent 
to  be  justified  on  that  same  ground  of  Christ's  propitiation, 
for  nothing  else  is  offered.  The  very  terms  on  which  God 
historically  vindicated  His  justice  and  wrought  redemp- 
tion, tie  us  down  and  limit  us  to  faith — such  faith  as  rests 
on  Christ  Jesus — as  the  instrument  of  our  justification. 
It  is  not  arbitrarily  limited  to  such  as  believe  by  way  of 
making  a  selection  or  restricting  the  gratuitous  grace  of 
God  to  one  certain  class  of  men  only,  or  as  if  some  by 
virtue  of  their  faith  could  merit  it  more  than  the  rest  of 
mankind.  It  is  offered  and  pressed  upon  all  men  of  every 
class  as  equally  in  need  and  equally  welcome.  Only  it 
lies  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case  that  whosoever  refuses 
to  repose  his  hope  of  acceptance  with  God  upon  the  revealed 
basis  of  Christ's  atonement,  shuts  himself  out  and  never 
can  be  justified  at  all — since  even  God  Himself  knows  or 
can  compass  no  other  method  for  acquitting  a  guilty  man. 

See,  then,  in  conclusion,  what  our  actual  position  is 
during  this  Gospel  period  in  which  we  live.  Looking 
back  to  the  pre-Christian  ages,  we  find  the  Eternal  Judge 

of  persons  who  either  never  hear  it  or  are  otherwise  incompetent  to  deal 
with  it. 


88  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

of  all  keeping  silence  wMle  men  transgressed ;  giving 
occasional  hints  of  His  wrath  against  their  evil-doing,  and 
holding  out  to  one  race  at  least  a  promise  that  some  day- 
He  would  open  a  fountain  of  forgiveness ;  but  in  point  of 
fact,  neither  fully  avenging  sin  nor  atoning  fully  for  it. 
Thus  human  sin  was  suffered  to  pile  itself  up  till  the  very 
justice  of  God  was  obscured.  At  last,  after  men  had 
practically  discovered  that  by  their  own  obedience  they 
could  not  clear  themselves  from  guilt,  God  Himself  entered 
into  history  for  the  purpose  of  doing  it  for  them.  He 
came  to  offer  once  for  all  an  ample  satisfaction  for  the  sins 
of  men.  The  unspeakable  Sacrifice  whose  divineness  puts 
it  outside  all  price  or  computation — the  Sacrifice  of  God 
in  human  nature  and  for  humanity — was  actually  con- 
summated in  the  world's  sight,  at  a  given  spot,  on  a  given 
day.  We  live,  thank  God!  on  the  hither  side  of  this 
immense  fact,  a  fact  which  did  at  one  stroke  revolutionise 
the  attitude  of  God  to  human  sinners.  We  behold,  lying 
behind  us  as  a  thing  done,  the  great  death  which  has 
expiated  our  guilt,  has  vindicated  the  justice  of  God  when 
He  justifies  us,  has  restored  us  to  the  approval  of  the 
Judge,  has  torn  across  our  sentence  and  set  open  the 
doors  of  our  prison.  On  that  cross,  God's  justice,  dumb 
before,  has  uttered  its  awful  voice  ;  God's  mercy,  that  spoke 
before  in  muffled  tones,  has  rung  out  clear  and  sweet ; 
God's  justice  and  mercy  speak  together  in  one  voice  more 
eloquent  than  the  words  of  any  preacher.  There  remains 
literally  no  more  to  do  but  for  each  one  of  us  to  fall  back 
for  himself  upon  the  divine  deed  which  has  achieved  our 
redemption  through  the  expiation  of  our  guilt,  and  with 
new-born  confidence  in  God,  and  with  overflowing  grati 
tude  and  with  adoring  love,  to  rest  there — on  the  work 
which  God  hath  wrought. 


(     89     ) 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

A  LEVELLING  GOSPEL. 

"Where  then  is  the  glorying?  It  is  excluded.  By  what  manner  of  law  ? 
of  works  ?  Nay :  but  by  a  law  of  faith.  We  reckon  therefore  that  a  man  is 
justified  by  faith  apart  from  the  works  of  the  law.  Or  is  God  the  God  of  Jews 
only  ?  is  he  not  the  God  of  Gentiles  also  ?  Yea,  of  Gentiles  also  :  if  so  be  that 
God  is  one,  and  he  shall  justify  the  circumcision  by  faith,  and  the  uncircum- 
cision  through  faith." — ilOM.  iii.  27-30. 

MATIONAL  pride  was  characteristic  of  the  Jews  in 
St.  Paul's  day.  Certainly  no  people  ever  had  such 
a  history  to  be  proud  of,  such  long  annals,  such  famous 
ancestors,  or  a  literature  of  such  spiritual  depth  and  in- 
sight. But  it  was  not  merely  of  these  they  boasted.  Alone 
among  nations,  it  was  of  their  religion  they  were  most 
proud.  They  could  not  pretend  at  that  period  to  be  a 
powerful  people,  politically  strong  or  formidable  in  war. 
But  when  their  fortunes  were  at  the  lowest,  their  territory 
ruled  by  foreigners,  their  language  extinct,  their  faith 
persecuted,  their  very  existence  as  a  nationality  tolerated 
only  because  they  were  feeble — even  then  they  had  one 
point  of  superiority  left.  Secure  in  being  the  selected 
favourites  of  heaven,  they  found  in  their  sole  possession 
of  Jehovah's  favour  and  in  the  hope  of  what  Jehovah 
would  one  day  do  for  them,  a  consolation  so  flattering  to 
their  patriotism  that  they  not  only  clung  to  it  as  a  com- 
pensation under  obloquy  or  disaster,  but  in  their  deepest 
fall  could  still  look  down  upon  their  heathen  conquerors 
with  pity. 


90  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

There  was  just  sufficient  foundation  for  this  feeling  to 
render  it  excusable.  Unfortunately,  in  the  case  of  many  of 
them,  it  took  a  shape  which  proved  disastrous  to  religious 
life.  It  was  one  thing  to  be  patriotically  proud  of  God's 
favour  for  the  ancestors  of  their  race  or  of  the  exceptional 
place  He  had  assigned  them  in  the  unfolding  of  salvation 
for  the  world.  It  was  quite  anotlier  thing  for  an  indi- 
vidual Jew  to  fancy  that  he  had  thereby  inherited  some 
exceptional  claim  on  divine  approval.  Yet  this  was  a 
temptation  which  lay  so  close  at  hand  that  numbers  of 
Jews  fell  into  it.  The  state  of  mind  thus  produced  may 
have  been  somewhat  like  this :  By  being  born  a  Jew  of 
pure  blood  and  circumcised  into  the  covenant  which  God 
had  made  thousands  of  years  before  with  Abraham,  a  man 
conceived  that  he  occupied  a  position  of  peculiar  nearness 
to  his  Maker.  Jehovah  was  his  national  God ;  loved  him 
as  He  did  not  love  the  outside  heathen  world ;  and  had 
admitted  him  to  special  means  for  securing  everlasting 
happiness.  In  particular,  Jehovah  had  given  to  him  a 
very  sacred  and  ancient  Law.  That  Law,  partly  moral, 
partly  ceremonial,  needed  only  to  be  kept  with  a 
scrupulous  regard  for  its  minuter  details,  and  then  each 
act  of  obedience  to  it  went  to  heighten  the  favour  with 
which  God  viewed  His  servant  and  to  procure  for  the  man 
a  still  larger  share  in  those  delights  which  after  death 
awaited  the  pious  Israelite.  So  that  one  who  from  infancy 
to  mature  age  had  been  trained  in  the  habitual  exercises  of 
Mosaism  and  had  religiously  observed  its  prescribed  mode 
of  life,  came  to  be,  simply  on  that  ground,  quite  sure  of 
God's  approbation.  He  looked  forward  to  the  Judgment 
Day  with  perfect  confidence  because  he  had  in  store  an 
abundant  stock  of  meritorious  services  dutifully  or  obse- 
quiously paid  in  compliance  with  divine  command. 

It  is  necessary  to  keep  this  in  view  when  we  read  St. 


A  LEVELLING  GOSPEL.  9 1 

Paul ;  for  this  was  exactly  tlie  state  of  mind  in  which  he 
had  himself  been  brought  up.  After  God  showed  him  a 
better  way  of  acceptance  through  Christ,  he  scarcely  ever 
refers  to  the  subject  of  justification  without  assailing  this 
Jewish  boastfulness  in  "  the  works  of  the  Law,"  of  which 
he  himself  had  been  an  example,  in  order  that  he  may 
refute  and  cast  it  down.  This  is  what  he  is  doing  in  our 
present  section.  Having  reached  as  the  natural  termina- 
tion to  his  long  argument,  this  conclusion  (verse  26),  that 
God  through  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus  Christ  is  able  with 
perfect  justice  to  acquit  and  justify  any  sinner  who  trusts 
to  that  way  of  salvation,  he  suddenly  halts  in  his  flow  of 
reasoning,  and,  as  though  he  were  looking  round  to  survey 
the  field  in  search  of  something  which  had  vanished  out 
of  sight,  he  abruptly  asks :  "  Where  then  is  the  boasting 
of  the  Jew  ?  "  "  It  is  shut  out."  There  is  no  more  room 
left  for  it.  What  shuts  it  out  ?  What  sort  of  law,*  or 
rule  of  divine  procedure  in  the  judging  and  justifying  of 
men,  is  that  which  can  exclude  boasting  ?  Certainly  not 
a  law  of  works  such  as  the  Mosaic  Law  was  when  under- 
stood to  prescribe  obedience  as  the  condition  of  reward. 
Not  that ;  for  if  a  man  earn  reward  by  his  own  obedience, 
he  has  ground  for  boasting.  Not  that;  for,  though  it 
was  never  meant  to  be  so  perverted,  yet  in  point  of  fact 
the  Mosaic  Law  had  proved  itself  the  fruitful  occasion  of 
Jewish  self-confidence.  So  far  from  shutting  it  out,  as  by 
all  reason  any  law  ought  to  have  done  which  judged  and 
sentenced  men  for  their  transgressions  against  God,  that 
Mosaic  Law  had  bred  in  Hebrew  hearts  a  crop  of  religious 
self-conceit  and  self-flattery.  No  :  boasting  is  actually 
excluded  only  under  this  new  and  better  way  of  being 
righteous  before  God  which  has  just  been  explained,  this 
other  "rule"  of  divine  administration,  which  justifies  a 

*  So  literally,  5td  tto.ov  voixov.     v.  27 


92  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

sinner  who  trusts  in  God.  This  cuts  self-righteousness 
down  by  the  roots,  as  nothing  else  can  do.  This  throws 
a  man,  not  back  upon  his  own  merits,  but  forward  on  the 
mercy  of  God  through  the  merits  of  Another.  This  leaves 
him  a  debtor  to  sovereign  grace  alone.  Boasting,  then, 
the  hereditary  national  fault  of  the  Jew,  is  excluded  only 
by  the  "  law  "  of  faith — for  the  ^'  law  of  faith  "  as  we  hold 
•it,  is  this : — that  a  man  is  justified  on  believing,  without 
his  keeping  of  the  Law  being  at  all  included  as  any  reason 
for  his  justification.^* 

This  vicious  boastfulness  which  St.  Paul  sought  to  root 
out  of  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen  is  not  a  thing  essen- 
tially Jewish.  At  bottom,  it  is  a  child  of  human  pride.  It 
has  its  birthplace  in  every  human  heart.  No  man  likes  to 
own  to  himself  that  he  has  literally  not  an  inch  of  ground 
to  stand  on  before  the  judgment  seat  of  God,  nor  a  scruple's 
weight  of  merit  to  plead  there,  nor  the  faintest  shadow 
of  a  claim  on  the  Judge  for  anything  but  condemnation. 
There  is  nothing  a  man  dislikes  more  than  that.  You 
have  only  to  be  quite  honest  with  your  own  feelings  when 
you  take  your  conduct  strictly  to  task,  in  order  to  find 
that  out.  A  certain  pride  of  moral  superiority  over  others 
when  all  comes  to  all,  is  the  very  breath  of  life  to  a  man 
so  long  as  he  is  only  religious  "  after  the  flesh,"  or  in  the 
way  that  unrenewed  human  nature  can  be  religious.  Eob 
him  of  that  and  you  rob  him  of  all  the  poor  hope  or  comfort 
for  hereafter  which  he  has  to  live  on.  For  that,  therefore, 
the  man  does  battle  as  for  dear  life.  Do  you  believe  the 
man  breathes  who  is  so  bad  that  he  has  not  anything,  not 

*  yhp  is  the  reading,  as  I  think,  to  be  preferred  in  verse  28,  not  6vv, 
although  the  latter  is  adopted  by  the  Revisers,  following  (like  Tischendorf 
and  others)  the  authority  of  MS.  B.  I  take  the  verse  to  be  a  recapitula- 
tion of  the  position  already  proved,  in  order  to  sustain  verse  27,  which  is 
based  upon  it. 


A  LEVELLING  GOSPEL.  93 

one  rag  of  imaginary  goodness,  left  to  cover  his  nakedness? 
Very  "  ragged  "  our  "  righteousnesses  "  may  be,  and  very 
*'  filthy  "  too,  but  we  cannot  afford  to  let  them  go,  to  stand 
ashamed,  in  unscreened  exposure  to  the  light  that  judges 
us,  defenceless  before  the  pitiless  judgment  of  God.  Can 
we  not  ?  Then  where  is  there  salvation  for  us  on  Paul's 
teaching?  Salvation  is  for  men,  he  says,  who  trust  to 
God's  mercy  for  it  and  to  Christ's  merits  :  and  that  "  law  " 
shuts  boasting  out.  The  last  wretched  shred  of  self-conceit 
must  go.  Not  a  rag  of  merit  is  left  to  flaunt  with  in  the 
sight  of  heaven.  Alone,  naked,  defenceless,  condemned, 
one  must  be  and  must  feel  oneself  to  be  and  must  confess 
oneself  to  be,  before  it  is  possible  to  put  one's  trust  in  the 
gratuitous  justification  provided  in  Christ  by  the  mercy  of 
God. 

A  characteristic  of  this  self-justifying  boastfulness  is 
that  it  climbs  upon  every  point  of  preference  or  advantage 
which  is  supposed  to  lift  one  sinner  a  little  above  his 
fellow- sinners.  It  lives  by  making  comparisons;  such 
invidious  and  foolish  comparisons  as  Paul  speaks  of  when 
he  talks  of  people  "  measuring  themselves  by  themselves 
and  comparing  themselves  among  themselves."  ^  Such 
diversities  exist  among  men  in  the  degree  of  their  moral 
delinquency,  and  God's  providence  gives  to  some  such  an 
advantage  over  others  in  respect  of  religious  privilege, 
that  difierences  of  this  sort  become  a  perfect  hot-bed  for 
breeding  spiritual  pride.  The  Jew  trusted  in  his  peculiar 
position,  simply  because  there  was  a  deal  in  his  religious 
position  which  was  peculiar  and  tempted  him  to  trust  in 
it.  Wherever  any  other  man  has  been  exposed  to  similar 
temptation,  you  find  a  similar  crop  of  self-righteous  con- 
fidence. When  God  singles  out  one  race  from  other  races, 
or  one  class  in  society  before  another  class,  or  one  individual 

*  2  Corinthians  x.  12. 


94  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

among  others,  for  exceptional  religious  advantages,  He 
certainly  does  not  mean  to  puff  up  tlie  favoured  elected 
one  with  spiritual  conceit.  It  is  nothing  but  the  abnormal 
working  of  man's  evil  nature  which  perverts  or  misuses 
what  is  intended  for  a  blessing.  Still,  it  is  a  constant 
action  of  the  evil  heart  under  parallel  circumstances. 
Called  Jew  or  called  Gentile,  a  man  always  does — unless 
grace  prevent — so  pervert  and  misuse  his  superior  privi- 
leges. Therefore  we  can  afford  to  throw  no  stones  at 
ancient  Israel.  It  was  very  proud  of  its  divine  Law  and 
looked  down  on  the  whole  Gentile  world  as  unclean :  do 
we  Christians  never  boast  ourselves  to  be  far  above  the 
blinded  Jew  or  the  benighted  heathen?  Your  Israelite 
conceived  himself  safe  for  eternity  because  he  had  been 
duly  circumcised  and  observed  the  festivals  of  the  sacred 
year :  does  your  Christian  never  build  any  hope  of  heaven 
on  his  good  Churchmanship  or  unchallenged  profession  of 
religion  ?  Jews  like  Saul  toiled  hard  to  deserve  paradise 
by  a  great  zeal  for  orthodoxy  and  a  scrupulous  life :  did 
no  one  ever  hear  of  any  Christian  doing  the  like  ? 

It  is  worth  while,  therefore,  to  observe  that  this  ten- 
dency to  presume  upon  exceptional  privileges  as  if  they 
made  a  man  sure  of  exceptional  favour  from  God,  rests 
at  bottom  on  the  false  assumption  that  God  will  have  two 
ways  of  dealing  with  sinners  at  last — one  way  for  the 
privileged  and  one  way  for  the  unprivileged.  Against 
this  assumption  it  is  curious  to  see  what  a  mighty  engine 
Paul  brings  to  bear  in  this  passage.  The  force  of  his 
logic  at  this  point  is  apt  to  be  missed  by  the  reader 
because  it  is  so  brief  When  expanded,  his  argument 
in  the  29th  and  30th  verses,  is  to  the  following  effect : — 

*'  Or,"  if  I  am  wrong  in  holding  (verse  28)  that  every 
man,  even  a  Jew,  is  to  be  justified  apart  from  his  own 
obedience  to  Law ;  if  you  Jews  are  right  in  thinking,  on 


A  LEVELLING  GOSPEL.  95 

the  contrary,  that  God  means  your  observance  of  Mosaic 
rules  to  be  the  ground  of  your  acceptance  with  Him  ; — then 
look  where  that  will  land  you !  In  that  case,  must  not 
"God  be  the  God  only  of  Jews?"  Since  it  is  only  to 
Jews,  and  not  to  Gentiles,  He  has  given  this  Mosaic  Law, 
"  Is  He  not  the  God  of  Gentiles  as  well  ?  "  Is  it  not  the 
very  prime  point  of  your  contention,  as  against  the  "gods 
many  and  lords  many"  of  the  heathen  world,  that  there 
is  only  one  living  and  true  God — Jehovah — the  Maker 
and  the  Judge  and  the  Saviour  of  all  men  alike?  But 
how  is  it  consistent  with  that  to  say  that  He  has  given 
to  you  Jews  a  law  by  which  you  are  to  be  justified,  and 
has  given  no  such  law  to  the  Gentiles  by  which  they 
might  be  justified?  Is  He  a  God  for  one  section  of  the 
human  family  and  not  for  another  ?  Or  can  He  who 
is  One  have  one  plan  of  dealing  with  sinners  of  one  nation 
and  a  different  plan  for  sinners  of  another  nation  ?  Surely 
God,  "if  so  be  that  He  is  One,"  must  be  one  in  His 
moral  administration.  Surely  His  unity  demands  that  He 
shall  act  on  common  principles  towards  all,  "justifying 
circumcised  men  (if  He  justify  them  at  all)  by  faith,  and 
uncircumcised  men  equally  through  the  same  faith." 

The  foundation  of  this  reasoning  lies  in  the  doctrine  of 
monotheism.  It  was  therefore  peculiarly  telling  against 
that  national  pride  of  particularism  in  the  Hebrew  people, 
which  while  sternly  upholding  that  their  God  was  the 
God  of  the  whole  earth,  yet  dreamt  that  somehow  He 
would  judge  and  save  them  on  different  principles  from 
the  rest  of  mankind.  It  is  no  less  fit  to  tell  upon  the 
modern  Jew,  wherever  devout  Jews  nowadays  are  dis- 
posed to  hear,  and  candid  enough  to  weigh,  plain  reason- 
ing from  such  a  countryman  of  their  own  as  Paul.  To 
this  day,  the  orthodox  Israelite  is  understood  to  observe 
the  rites  and  duties  of  that   national  Law  which  God 


96    THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

gave  by  Moses,  as  a  means  of  commencling  himself  to 
God.  In  other  words,  he  expects  to  be  saved  as  a  Jew, 
in  a  peculiar  way,  through  which  no  man  who  is  not  a 
Jew  can  possibly  be  saved.  Salvation  on  this  theory  is 
not  only  of  the  Jews  (as  Jesus  the  Jew  taught  it  was) 
but /or  Jews  only — or,  if  any  other  man  dare  hope  to  be 
acquitted  at  last,  it  must  be  on  a  different  principle. 
Certainly  it  cannot  be  by  keeping  the  Mosaic  Law.  And 
yet  the  God  of  the  Jew  is  the  God'  of  the  Gentile  too. 
The  cleft  which  cuts  the  human  race  into  these  two 
portions — Jew  and  Gentile — is  a  very  deep  one ;  it  cuts 
far  down ;  but  it  cannot  cut  so  far  as  this.  ^'  How  shall 
man  be  just  with  his  Maker  ?  "  is  a  problem  which  can 
admit  of  only  one  answer :  not — in  this  way,  if  he  be 
a  Jewish  man,  and  in  that  other  way,  or  no  way  at  all, 
if  he  be  a  Gentile  man.  The  priority  of  privilege  and  of 
grace  which  it  pleased  the  common  Father  of  all  to  bestow 
upon  our  Hebrew  brothers,  is  a  splendid  favour  from 
His  hands,  a  glorious  crown  of  eminence  on  their  brows ; 
and  we,  who  call  Jesus  our  Lord,  can  bear  them  no 
grudge  on  that  account.  But  it  does  not  go  so  far  as 
this,  that  to  them  only  God  has  set  open  the  appointed 
gate  to  life.  No  right-hearted  Jew  can  believe  that.  No 
word  of  their  ancient  books,  no  utterance  of  their  inspired 
teachers,  ever  taught  them  that.  Yet  to  such  a  conclu- 
sion it  must  come,  if  salvation  be  a  prize  to  be  won  by 
dutifully  observing  the  Law  of  Moses.  No  :  it  never  was 
by  dutifully  observing  the  Law  of  Moses  that  any  devout 
Jew  found  favour  with  God.  From  Abraham  downwards, 
God  had  for  His  Hebrew  children  another  way  of  justifica- 
tion— the  way  of  lowly,  penitent,  self-emptying  faith,  of 
a  confidence  which  rested  not  upon  their  own  merits  but 
on  the  mercy  and  promises  of  God  Himself.  The  same 
way  of  justification  God  has  now  set  open  also  to  His 


A  LEVELLING  GOSPEL.  97 

Gentile  children;  that  by  faith  in  His  one  Messiah,  we 
all,  circumcised  or  uncircumcised,  may  pass  together  into 
reconciliation  with  our  common  Father  in  heaven. 

This  levelling  argument  of  the  Apostle  is  good  for  more 
than  Hebrews.  Let  us  look  at  our  own  position.  We  are 
privileged  men.  As  Christians,  as  Protestants,  as  English- 
men ;  as  the  children  of  devout  parents  who  saw  to  our  being 
early  baptized  and  reared  in  the  faith  and  nurture  of  saints ; 
you  may  seek  the  wide  world  over  for  a  company  of  men 
selected  to  richer  religious  privilege.  Must  we  shut  our 
eyes  to  these  distinguishing  mercies  of  Heaven,  or  shrink 
from  owning  that  we  are  highly  favoured  ?  By  no  means. 
As  little  as  Paul  shrank  from  extolling  in  their  due  place 
the  pre-eminent  "gifts  and  calling"  of  God  in  the  case  of 
His  loved  and  chosen  Israel.  Deep  joy  and  a  certain 
tender  and  fearful  gratitude  become  us  well.  Having 
received  much,  we  owe  much — much  thanks,  much  love, 
much  fruit.  Only  let  no  soul  of  us  boast  because  we 
have  been  selected  for  such  distinction  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  Let  none  of  us,  on  the  strength  of  pious  parents, 
or  orthodox  teaching,  or  Church  membership,  or  unspotted 
Christian  reputation,  plume  himself  upon  the  favour  of 
God  as  one  who  stands  a  better  chance  for  eternity  than 
foreign  idolaters  or  the  classes  at  home  whom  we  send 
"  missions  "  to  convert.  Is  not  this  (as  it  were)  to  postu- 
late a  two-faced  God — One  who  pardons  very  wicked  and 
ignorant  people  in  sheer  grace,  out  of  pure  regard  to  the 
work  of  Jesus  Christ,  but  who  receives  respectable  Chris- 
tian people  on  another  footing,  allowing  a  certain  weight 
to  their  general  moral  character  and  correct  religious 
belief?  There  is  no  fear  that  any  evangelical  Christian 
will  say  such  things.  The  ear  is  shocked  to  hear  them 
said.  What  may  well  be  feared  is  that  some  do,  without 
at  all  knowing  it,  harbour  a  self-righteous  confidence  in 

G 


98  A  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

these  accidental  advantages  of  Christian  position  and 
character.  Against  such  a  temptation  we  have  to  fight 
with  the  weapon  of  St.  Paul.  It  is  a  levelling  Gospel 
which  we  have  to  preach.  The  best  and  the  worst  equally 
sue  for  a  boon  which  they  have  done  nothing  to  deserve. 
They  must  stand  side  by  side,  abashed  and  guilty,  to  be 
covered  over  with  the  mantle  of  the  Reconciler,  to  be 
washed  in  His  blood,  and  to  enter  the  celestial  city  only 
at  His  intercession. 


(     99     ) 


CHAPTER  IX. 

A    CRUCIAL   CASE. 

"Do  Tve  then  make  the  law  of  none  effect  through  faith?  God  forbid: 
nay,  we  establish  the  law.  What  then  shall  we  say  that  Abraham,  our  fore- 
father according  to  the  flesh,  hath  found  ?  For  if  Abraham  was  justified  by 
works,  he  hath  whereof  to  glory  ;  but  not  toward  God.  For  what  saith  the 
scripture  ?  And  Abraham  believed  God,  and  it  was  reckoned  unto  him  for 
righteousness.  Now  to  him  that  worketh,  the  reward  is  not  reckoned  as  of 
grace,  but  as  of  debt.  But  to  him  that  worketh  not,  but  believeth  on  him 
that  justifieth  the  ungodly,  his  faith  is  reckoned  for  righteousness.  Even  as 
David  als^o  pronounceth  blessing  upon  the  man,  unto  whom  God  reekoneth 
righteousness  apart  from  works,  saying,  blessed  are  they  whose  iniquities 
are  forgiven,  and  whoso  sins  are  covered.  Blessed  is  the  man  to  whom  the 
Lord  will  not  reckon  sin.  Is  this  blessing  then  pronounced  upon  the  circum- 
cision, or  upon  the  uncircumcision  also  ?  for  we  say,  To  Abraham  his  faith 
was  reckoned  for  righteousness.  How  then  was  it  reckoned  ?  when  he  was  in 
circumcision,  or  in  uncircumcision  ?  Not  in  circumcision,  but  in  uncircum- 
cision :  and  he  received  the  sign  of  circumcision,  a  seal  of  the  righteousness 
of  the  faith  which  he  had  while  he  was  in  uncircumcision  :  that  he  might  be 
the  father  of  all  them  that  believe,  though  they  be  in  uncircumcision,  that 
righteousness  might  be  reckoned  unto  them  ;  and  the  father  of  circumcision 
to  them  who  not  only  are  of  the  circumcision,  but  who  also  walk  in  the  steps 
of  that  faith  of  our  father  Abraham  which  he  had  in  uncircumcision.  For 
not  through  the  law  was  the  promise  to  Abraham  or  to  his  seed,  that  he  should 
be  heir  of  the  world,  but  through  the  righteousness  of  faith.  For  if  they 
which  are  of  the  law  be  heirs,  faith  is  made  void,  and  the  promise  is  made  of 
none  effect :  for  the  law  worketh  wrath  ;  but  where  there  is  no  law,  neither 
is  there  transgression.  For  this  cause  it  is  of  faith,  that  it  may  be  according 
to  grace  ;  to  the  end  that  the  promise  may  be  sure  to  all  the  seed  ;  not  to 
that  only  which  is  of  the  law,  but  to  that  also  which  is  of  the  faith  of  Abraham, 
who  is  the  father  of  us  all  (as  it  is  written,  A  father  of  many  nations  have  I 
made  tliee)  before  him  whom  he  believed,  even  God,  who  quickeneth  the  dead, 
and  calleth  the  things  that  are  not,  as  though  they  were.  Who  in  hope 
believed  against  hope,  to  the  end  that  he  might  become  a  father  of  many 
nations,  according  to  that  which  had  been  spoken,  So  shall  thy  seed  be. 


lOO         THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

And  without  being  weakened  in  faith,  he  considered  his  own  body  now  as 
good  as  dead  (he  being  about  a  hundred  years  old),  and  the  deadness  of  Sarah's 
womb :  yea,  looking  unto  the  promise  of  God,  he  wavered  not  through  un- 
belief, but  waxed  strong  through  faith,  giving  glory  to  God,  and  being  fully 
assured  that,  what  he  had  promised,  he  was  able  also  to  perform.  Where- 
fore also  it  was  reckoned  unto  him  for  righteousness.  Now  it  was  not  written 
for  his  sake  alone,  that  it  was  reckoned  unto  him  :  but  for  our  sake  also,  unto 
whom  it  shall  be  reckoned,  who  believe  on  him  that  raised  Jesus  our  Lord 
from  the  dead,  who  was  delivered  up  for  our  trespasses,  and  was  raised  for 
our  justification."— Rom.  iii.  31 ;  iv. 

QT.  PAUL  lias  just  shown  how  the  Gospel  method  of 
^  gratuitous  justification  for  every  sinner  who  trusts  to 
God's  grace  through  Jesus  Christ,  shuts  out  the  usual 
Hebrew  boast  in  the  Mosaic  Law  as  a  pathway  to  eternal 
life.  But  it  might  seem  to  some  Hebrew  readers  as  if  it 
did  a  good  deal  more  than  that.  This  new  doctrine  of 
justification  by  faith,  St.  Paul  contended,  set  aside  the  Law 
of  Moses  as  a  ground  of  acceptance  with  God  :  did  it  not  set 
it  aside  altogether  ?  Jews  who  had  been  trained  to  think 
of  their  national  Law  as  given  with  this  very  design,  that 
by  keeping  it  they  might  deserve  a  reward  in  heaven 
such  as  no  uncircumcised  man  could  ever  claim,  might 
well  fear  lest  to  deprive  it  of  this  value  would  deprive  it 
of  all  value,  and  leave  it  utterly  empty  or  invalid. 

To  this  difficulty*  there  were  two  answers  possible. 

The  most  obvious  answer,  and  the  one  which  we  should 
naturally  have  expected,  would  be  this:  The  Law  had 
other  ends  to  serve.  This  reply  St.  Paul  actually  gives 
when  he  comes  across  the  same  difficulty  in  his  letter  to 
Galatia.  "  What  then  is  the  Law  ?  It  was  added  because 
of  transgressions."  ....  It  "  kept  us  in  ward,  shut  us  up 
unto  the  faith  which  should  afterwards  be  revealed."  .... 
It  "  hath  been  our  tutor  to  bring  us  unto  Christ."  f    Some- 

*  Stated  in  the  last  verse  of  the  third  chapter,  which  ought  properly 
to  open  the  fourth. 

t  Galatians  iii.  19,  23,  24. 


A  CEUCIAL  CASE.  lOI 

thing  like  this,  in  fact,  Paul  has  already  implied  in  this 
very  letter  to  Rome,  where  he  defined  the  design  of  the 
Law  to  be :  "  That  every  mouth  may  be  stopped,  and  all 
the  world  may  be  brought  under  the  judgment  of  God."* 
Here,  however,  it  is  a  different  answer  which  he  gives :  one 
less  obvious,  and  the  force  of  which  it  is  less  easy  to  catch. 
He  answers  by  alleging  the  case  of  Abraham,  which  at  much 
length  he  discusses  through  this  fourth  chapter.  There  is 
some  difficulty  in  seeing  how  the  example  of  Abraham's 
justification  by  faith  bears  upon  the  statement  which  it 
seems  t  brought  in  to  illustrate,  viz.,  that  justification  by 
faith  does  not  invalidate  but  rather  establish  the  Law  of 
Moses  (ch.  iii.  3 1 ).  The  force  of  the  argument  may  be 
somewhat  like  this :  The  reward  which  nearly  every  Jew 
hoped  to  secure  for  himself  through  his  circumcision  and 
his  observance  of  the  Mosaic  Law  could  be  nothing  else 
than  the  national  blessing  which  God  had  promised  to  the 
chosen  people  from  the  very  commencement  of  His  relations 
with  them.  That  blessing  had  been  originally  conferred 
by  covenant  upon  the  ancestor  of  the  race  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  his  seed.  It  was  in  the  character  of  a  descend- 
ant of  Abraham  that  each  Jew  received  in  his  flesh  the 
seal  of  the  national  covenant  or  had  a  right  to  aspire  after 
the  national  hope.  Nothing  higher,  tnerefore,  could  be 
looked  for  by  any  Israelite  than  to  attain  to  the  blessed- 
ness of  his  forefather  Abraham.  Nor  could  any  words 
better  express  the  supreme  felicity  of  a  Jew's  heaven,  than 
to  say  that  he  should  lie  for  ever  and  banquet  in  Abraham's 
bosom.J     Yet  this  special  favour  had  been  promised  to 

*  Romans  iii.  19. 

+  This  difficulty  has  pressed  upon  some  good  interpreters  (as  Philippi, 
e.g.),  so  much  as  to  lead  them  to  acknowledge  no  connection  between  the 
fourth  chapter  and  the  thirty-first  verse  of  the  third.  But  the  objections 
to  this  abrupt  change  of  topic,  urged  by  Meyer  and  others,  appear  to  me 
insuperable.  X  See  Luke  xvi.  22. 


102     THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

their  great  ancestor  and  received  by  him,  not  certainly  in 
consequence  of  his  observance  of  Mosaic  Law,  which  was 
not  given  for  a  great  while  after,  not  even  in  consideration 
of  his  being  circumcised,  but  solely  because  he  was  a 
believer  in  the  gracious  promises  of  God.  Abraham  him- 
self, in  short,  was  justified  by  faith.  The  whole  national 
life  of  Israel  is  thus  seen  to  have  rooted  itself  historically 
in  God's  grace  and  man's  trust  in  God's  grace ;  not  at  all 
in  Moses'  Law  or  man's  obedience  to  that.  The  Law  did 
not  come  in  till  "  four  hundred  and  thirty  years  after."  * 
Instead  of  God's  covenant  with  Israel  resting  on  the  Law 
— the  Law  on  the  contrary  rested  on  the  covenant.  That 
covenant  was,  to  begin  with,  one  of  grace  not  of  works. 
So  far,  therefore,  from  Paul's  doctrine  of  justification  being 
a  new  theory  upsetting  or  undoing  the  Mosaic  Law,  it 
was  in  point  of  fact  just  the  old  teaching  of  the  very 
earliest  "  Book  of  the  Law."  On  this  principle  had  God's 
dealings  with  Israel  from  the  first  proceeded ;  on  it  accord- 
ingly the  Mosaic  legislation  itself  must  be  supposed  to 
rest.  Do  we,  then,  make  the  Law  of  Moses  void,  St.  Paul 
might  well  ask,  by  making  faith  the  medium  of  our 
acceptance  with  God  ?  Far  from  it.  On  the  contrary, 
we  establish  that  Law :  since  we  find  for  it  its  ancient 
basis  on  which  alone  it  can  serve  those  helpful  uses  for 
which  it  was  given. 

The  case  of  Abraham  was  thus,  as  St.  Paul  clearly  saw, 
a  crucial  instance  in  which  to  test  his  doctrine  of  justi- 
fication by  faith.  In  the  eleventh  of  Hebrews  we  have  a 
long  list  of  Old  Testament  saints  who  all  lived  and  over- 
came by  faith.  Any  one  of  these  might  have  served  to 
show  that  what  St.  Paul  preached  was  no  novel  way  of 

*  Galatians  iii.  17.  See  on  this  whole  argument  the  train  of  reasoning 
in  Galatians  iii.  6-23,  where  the  steps  are  given  with  greater  distinctness 
than  in  Romans.     The  comparison  of  the  two  epistles  is  here  most  fruitful. 


A  CRUCIAL  CASE.  IO3 

salvation.  But  no  other  one  could  have  silenced  Jewish 
objectors  so  well  as  this  case  of  their  first  father.  Abraham 
was  not  merely  the  first  of  Israelites  or  the  greatest  of 
them :  he  was  all  Israel  in  his  single  person.  The  whole 
of  the  supernatural  relations  to  God  by  which  Hebrew 
annals  had  been  illuminated  lay  as  in  a  germ  within  the 
primeval  covenant  which  it  pleased  Jehovah  to  conclude 
with  that  grandest  of  the  patriarchs — the  man  who  came 
out  of  Mesopotamia.  It  would  never  do  for  a  Jew  to  pre- 
tend that  a  principle  which  ruled  the  relations  of  Abraham 
to  Jehovah  could  by  any  possibility  make  void  the  Law 
of  Moses. 

The  example  of  Abraham  proves  fruitful  for  St.  Paul's 
purpose  in  more  ways  than  one.  His  controversy  with 
his  countrymen  up  to  this  point  has  involved  two  main 
positions.  The  first  is  this :  "  That  a  man  is  justified  by 
faith  apart  from  the  works  of  the  Law  "  (ch.  iii.  28).  The 
second  is  this :  That  "  God  is  one,  and  therefore  He  will 
justify  the  circumcision  by  faith,  and  the  uncircumcision 
through  faith"  (ch.  iii.  30).  In  other  words,  he  has 
maintained :  first,  that  there  is  justification  for  no  man 
except  by  trusting  in  God's  grace;  next,  that  there  is 
justification  for  every  man  who  does  so  trust.  Both 
positions  he  now  proceeds  to  illustrate,  and,  while  he 
illustrates  them,  to  confirm,  by  the  case  of  Abraham. 

I.  It  tuas  hy  his  faith  Alrahaiii  luas  justified  y  7wt  hy  his 
icor'ks  of  obedience  (ch.  iv.  1-8). 

Paul's  proof  of  this  is  very  simple.  He  finds  a  remark- 
able proof- text  ready  to  his  hand  in  Genesis  xv.  16.  Let 
us  recall  how  it  occurs.  The  religious  life  of  Abraham  as 
it  is  related  to  us  in  the  oldest  book  in  the  Bible,  gathers 
round  three  leading  moments :  The  first,  when  God  bade 
him  emigrate  from  his  kindred  and  adopted  home  in 
Haran  to  become  a  wandering  sheikh  in  the  unknown 


I04  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

region  wLicli  lay  betwixt  the  Jordan  and  tlie  Mediter- 
ranean (Genesis  xii.  1-5) ;  tlie  second,  at  Mamre,  when 
God  first  made  with  the  childless  and  aged  man  an  explicit 
covenant  that  he  should  yet  have  a  son  of  whom  should 
issue  an  innumerable  posterity,  and  that  to  this  posterity 
should  be  given  long  afterwards  for  a  dwelling-place  and 
possession  the  fair  rich  land  over  which  he  had  roamed  as 
a  nomad  sheepmaster  (Genesis  xv.)  ;  the  third,  when  the 
first  portion  of  this  promise  having  been  fulfilled  in  the 
birth  of  Isaac  as  well  as  the  whole  of  it  sealed  by  the  rite 
of  circumcision,  it  pleased  Jehovah  to  test  His  servant's 
confidence  in  it  by  commanding  the  Child  of  Promise  to 
be  sacrificed  (Genesis  xxii.).  At  all  these  three  turning- 
times  in  the  development  of  Abraham's  spiritual  history, 
his  confidence  in  God  (his  "  faith,"  as  it  is  usually  termed) 
appeared  in  relief  as  the  most  eminent  feature  of  his 
character.  Plainly,  the  first  of  these  three,  his  migration 
from  Haran  to  Canaan,  was  preliminary  to  the  second, 
which  conveyed  to  him  the  promises  of  God ;  and  the 
third,  or  sacrifice  of  Isaac,  was  a  consequent  of  the  second. 
The  central  point,  therefore,  in  the  patriarch's  whole  his- 
tory is  to  be  sought  for  in  that  great  day  when  Jehovah 
covenanted  with  Him  on  the  basis  of  a  twofold  promise : 
the  promise,  first,  of  a  large  and  blessed  posterity;  and 
the  promise,  second,  of  a  land  of  inheritance  for  his  seed 
to  dwell  in.*  Now  it  is  in  connection  with  Abraham's 
share  in  this  marvellous  transaction  with  God  that  those 
words  occur  which  St.  Paul  found  to  be  so  significant  for 
his  purpose.-f*     On  God's  side,  there  was  simply  a  word 

*  Both  promises  had  been  anticipated,  indeed  :  the  promise  of  seed 
when  he  came  from  Haran,  cf.  Genesis  xv.  5,  and  xii.  2,  3,  and  the  pro- 
mise of  the  land  when  he  first  entered  Canaan,  cf.  xv.  7  with  xii.  7.  But 
now  for  the  first  time  the  two  promises  are  amplified  and  made  the  joint 
basis  of  a  solemn  covenant  which  includes  them  both,  cf.  Genesis  xv.  8-21. 

t  They  are  cited  again  in  Galatians  iii.  6. 


A  CRUCIAL  CASE.  I05 

announcing  the  promises  of  His  grace  ;  on  the  man's  side, 
simply  a  devout  and  childlike  reliance  upon  that  word. 
God  asked  no  more  :  and  the  man  had  no  more  to  give. 
His  mere  trust  in  God  the  Promiser  was  held  to  be  ade- 
quate as  a  ground  for  that  sinful  man's  acceptance  into 
favour,  friendship  and  league  with  the  eternal  Jehovah. 
In  the  words  of  the  sacred  and  venerable  text  (as  St. 
Paul  cites  it)  "  Abraham  believed  God,  and  it  was  counted 
unto  him  for  righteousness  ;  "*  that  is,  for  a  ground  of  his 
justification  and  acceptance  with  God. 

The  Apostle's  argument  on  this  ancient  text  is  a  very- 
obvious  one.  There  are  no  more  than  two  ways  of  obtain- 
ing divine  approval.  Either  you  deserve  it,  having  earned 
it  as  a  workman  does  his  wages ;  then  it  is  no  favour  but 
a  pure  debt,  and  you  have  something  to  be  proud  of  and 
to  boast  in.  Or  else,  not  having  earned  the  wages  of 
divine  approval  but  the  wages  of  sin,  which  is  death,  you 
trust  in  the  promised  grace  of  One  who  justifies  the  un- 
godly; then  it  may  be  said  that  this  trust  of  yours  is 
reckoned  as  equivalent  to  righteousness.  It  does  for  you, 
the  ungodly,  what  the  righteous  man's  righteousness  does 
for  him.  Now,  Abraham's  acceptance  was  plainly  of  this 
latter  sort.  He,  therefore,  at  least,  had  no  ground  for 
pride  or  boasting  in  the  presence  of  God.  His,  rather, 
was  such  blessedness  as  his  great  descendant  David  praised 
so  long  after  in  his  song;-|-  the  blessedness  of  the  sinner 
to  whom  Jehovah  does  not  reckon  his  sins,  but  on  the 
contrary  covers  them  out  of  sight  and  puts  them  for  ever 
away  out  of  remembrance.  Not  to  impute  to  the  sinner 
his  sins  but  to  count  his  faith  for  righteousness,  are  two 
sides  to  one  beatitude. 

*  So  the  LXX.  ;  but  the  Hebrew  reads  :   "  Abraham  believed  Jehovah 
and  He  counted  it  to  him  for  righteousness." 
+  Psalm  xxxii.  I,  2. 


I06  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

The  second  position  in  St.  Paul's  contention  with  his 
countrymen  likewise  received  confirmation  from  the  history 
of  their  "first  father." 

2.  Abraham  was  justified  hy  Ms  faith,  not  as  a  circum- 
cised man^  hut  as  an  uncircurncised  (verses  9-16). 

It  lies  in  the  very  idea  of  acceptance  through  faith,  that 
wherever  faith  is  present,  there  God  will  accept  the  sinner 
apart  from  any  other  circumstance,  such  as  nationality, 
or  an  external  rite,  or  church  privilege,  or  the  like.  If 
faith  saves  a  man,  then  faith  must  save  every  man  who 
has  it.  This  inference  from  his  doctrine  Paul  has  been 
pressing  on  his  Jewish  readers,  as  one  which  of  necessity 
broke  down  their  favourite  restriction  of  salvation  to  cir- 
cumcised persons  only.  Here,  then,  is  a  very  curious 
confirmation  of  it.  Abraham,  through  whom  came  cir- 
cumcision itself  with  all  other  Hebrew  privileges^ — how, 
or  in  what  state,  was  he  taken  into  divine  favour  and 
justified  by  his  faith?  Notoriously,  it  was  previous  to 
his  circumcision.  Years  after  that  great  day  of  his  first 
covenanting  with  God,  when  his  faith  in  the  promise  was 
counted  for  righteousness  (thirteen  years  after  at  the  very 
least,  as  the  history  in  Genesis  proves,)*  God  returned  to 
His  servant  to  renew  His  promises ;  and  then  it  was,  not 
before,  that  God  gave  him  a  permanent  and  unmistakable 
token  imprinted  on  his  flesh  to  ratify  as  with  a  signet  the 
covenant  made  with  him  and  his  seed.  In  this  historical 
sequence  of  the  events,  the  Apostle  sees  a  divine  purpose 
and  reads  a  divine  lesson.  Abraham  was  a  believer  before 
he  was  circumcised.  He  was  a  justified  man  as  soon  as 
he  was  a  believer,  not  as  soon  as  he  was  circumcised. 

*  By  comparing  his  age  at  Ishmael's  birth,  eighty-six  years,  with  his 
age  at  his  circumcision,  ninety-nine  years :  cf.  Genesis  xvi.  i6,  and  xvii. 
24.  The  first  covenanting  was  before  Ishmael's  birth  (see  Genesis  xv.  3), 
but  how  long  before  we  do  not  know. 


A  CRUCIAL  CASE.  IO7 

Circumcision  came  in  simply  to  attest  a  state  of  acceptance 
with  God  which  already  existed  ;  to  seal,  not  to  constitute, 
his  justification.  And  the  design  of  such  an  arrangement 
was  to  make  him  the  true  type  and  spiritual  progenitor 
of  all  believers : — of  such  believers  first,  as  are  never  cir- 
cumcised at  all,  since  for  thirteen  long  years  or  more  he 
was  himself  an  uncircumcised  believer;  then  of  such  also 
as  are  circumcised,  indeed,  yet  not  circumcised  only,  but, 
like  him,  believers  too.  The  believing  life  of  Abraham, 
but  of  no  other  representative  man,  covers  these  two 
states :  first,  believing,  but  not  circumcised — that  answers 
to  Gentile  Christians ;  second,  believing  and  circumcised 
as  well — that  represents  Jews  who  walk  in  the  steps  of 
his  faith.  He  is  "  the  father  of  us  all."  The  only  people 
whom  his  experience  fails  to  embrace,  whose  "father" 
and  representative  he  really  is  not^  are  those  Jews  who 
are  circumcised  but  not  believing;  who  trust  in  their 
lineage  and  their  covenant  badge  and  their  keeping  of  the 
law,  expecting  to  be  saved  for  their  meritorious  observ- 
ance of  prescribed  rules ;  but  who  in  the  free  and  gracious 
promises  of  Abraham's  God  put  no  trust  at  all ! 

Having  got  thus  far,  one  sees  how  St.  Paul  has  reached 
this  notable  conclusion :  that  so  far  from  his  doctrine  of 
justification  by  faith  making  the  Law  of  Moses  void,  it  is 
the  Jewish  figment  of  justification  by  the  Law  which 
makes  void  God's  promise  and  Abraham's  faith  and  the 
whole  basis  of  grace  on  which  the  privileges  of  the  Hebrew 
people  ultimately  reposed.  Here,  therefore,  he  fairly 
turns  the  tables  upon  his  objectors  (ver.  14) :  "  If"  says  he 
at  the  close  of  his  reasoning,  "  they  who  keep  the  Mosaic 
Law  are  (as  such)  heirs  of  the  divine  promise  made  to 
Abraham  and  his  seed,  then  faith  is  made  void — not  the 
Law  but  faith; — the  faith  by  which  Abraham  received 
the   promise  at  first;   ay,   and   the   very  promise   itself, 


To8    THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

having  been  made  only  to  faith,  becomes  an  annulled  or 
abrogated  promise !  "  This,  I  repeat,  is  a  notable  con- 
clusion. For  a  Jew  to  put  his  trust,  as  most  Jews  did, 
in  his  own  compliance  with  Moses'  Law  as  the  ground  of 
his  acceptance  with  God,  is  virtually  to  invalidate  or 
repudiate  that  very  covenant  of  grace  made  with  him  in 
his  "  first  father,"  on  which  his  whole  national  standing 
and  religious  privileges  historically  hinge.  It  is  to  break 
with  the  beginnings  of  Hebrew  history.  It  is  actually  to 
shut  himself  outside  of  the  covenant  of  promise  and  the 
hopes  of  his  race.* 

Nay,  more :  another  conclusion  emerges.  It  turns  ont 
now  that,  instead  of  St.  Paul  being  an  apostate  or  disloyal 
Jew  for  admitting  believing  Gentiles  to  an  equal  place  in 
the  favour  of  Israel's  God,  it  is  his  self-righteous  country- 

*  The  fact  is,  as  St.  Paul  here  interjects  in  his  rapid  parenthetic  fashion 
(ver.  15),  to  rest  one's  hope  of  divine  favour  on  the  Law  is  to  misconceive 
both  the  design  and  the  effect  of  law.  What  the  Law  does  is  to  aggravate 
divine  displeasure,  not  to  win  divine  favour  ;  for  it  deepens  human  sin 
into  wilful  transgression  of  a  known  command  ;  since  in  the  absence  of 
law,  "there  can  be  no  transgression  of  it."  The  introduction  of  this 
favourite  distinction  of  our  Apostle's  (to  which  he  is  to  revert  presently 
in  the  next  chapter)  looks  at  first  sight  a  little  out  of  place  here  and  even 
disturbing  to  the  course  of  reasoning.  It  ought  to  be  noted,  however, 
that  he  has  already  begun  to  think  of  the  case  of  Gentiles  (of  which  he  is 
in  act  to  speak  from  ver.  16  onwards) ;  and  it  maybe  that  this  re-awakens 
in  his  mind  the  contrast  betwixt  the  half  conscious  sins  of  heathens  "  with- 
out law,"  and  the  more  criminal  sins  of  Jews  "  under  the  Law,"  to  which  in 
an  earlier  chapter  (chap.  ii. )  he  has  already  paid  marked  attention.  Such 
side-play  of  thought,  darting  off  from  the  main  line  of  discussion  to  another 
aspect  of  the  subject,  is  at  all  events  highly  characteristic  of  our  author. 
No  other  great  writer  leaves  on  the  reader  such  an  impression  of  impromptu 
composition.  He  writes  as  a  lively-minded  conversationist  talks,  on  the  spur 
of  the  moment,  with  interjected  glances  at  lines  of  thought  which  he  does 
not  stay  to  work  out.  May  not  this  be  in  part  accounted  for  by  his  habit 
of  dictating  his  letters  ?  In  a  life  so  busy  as  his,  one  may  conjecture  that 
what  was  thus  hastily  taken  down  while  he  nervously  paced  his  chamber 
underwent  next  to  no  revision  by  the  author,  but  was  despatched  as  it 
came  hot  from  his  lips. 


A  CRUCIAL  CASE.  IO9 

man,  who  monopolises  divine  grace  and  will  have  no  Gen- 
tile to  be  saved  unless  lie  has  first  become  a  circumcised 
observer  of  Moses'  Law,  that  is  really  false  to  the  original 
idea  of  the  Abrahamic  covenant.  For  the  promised  in- 
heritance of  God  was  at  first  suspended  neither  upon  law- 
observance,  nor  even  upon  circumcision,  but  simply  and 
solely  upon  faith.  This  was  done  with  the  express  design, 
that  the  said  promise  might  be  secured  to  the  whole  seed 
of  Abraham  :  not  narrowed  to  his  literal  legal  descendants, 
who  lived  under  Mosaic  institutions  ;  but  open  also  to 
that  other  wider  portion  who  are  the  children  only  of 
Abraham's  faith — his  spiritual  "  seed."  So,  then,  it  really 
lay  in  the  terms  of  the  original  covenant  that  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  should  be  opened  to  all  believers.  How  else 
could  that  great  word  have  been  fulfilled  which  said  to 
him  :  "I  have  made  thee  a  father  (not  of  one,  but)  of  many 
nations"?  (Of.  vers.  16,  17,  a.)  All  who  have  faith, 
whatever  their  race,  are  "  blessed  with  faithful  Abra- 
ham : "  *  and  he,  says  Paul,  writing  to  a  Gentile  Church, 
"  is  the  father  of  us  all." 

The  Apostle  has  now  completed  his  polemic  against 
Jewish  objectors.  Before,  however,  he  is  done  with  the 
case  of  Abraham,  there  is  a  further  use  to  be  made  of  his 
bright  exemplar.  The  father  of  believers  is  good  for  more 
than  polemical  or  controversial  purposes.  He  to  whom 
God  first  made  those  promises  which  are  for  all  who  con- 
fide in  Him,  with  whom,  as  the  type  and  head  of  all 
believers,  God  first  entered  into  specific  covenant  relations 
of  friendship,  is  one  who  stands  out  in  the  sacred  story  as, 
not  simply  a  specimen  of  the  faith  that  justifies  or  saves 
but  as  the  best  of  all  specimens,  highest  pattern  and  lesson 
in  this  grace  to  all  his  spiritual  progeny.    His  faith,  there- 

*  See  Gal.  iii.  8. 


I  I O  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

fore,  St.  Paul  now  examines,  eulogises,  and  holds  up  as  a 
model  for  Christian  believers  (ch.  iv.  17-25). 

I  spoke  of  three  leading  moments  in  the  spiritual  life  of 
this  great  patriarch  at  which  his  faith  shone  brightly.  In 
the  roll  of  heroes  in  faith  given  in  the  eleventh  chapter  of 
Hebrews,  stress  is  laid  upon  the  first  of  these,  his  migra- 
tion at  God's  call  into  a  foreign  land,  and  upon  the  last  of 
them,  his  sacrifice  of  Isaac."^  Here,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
is  the  central  fact  of  his  acceptance  of  God's  covenant 
promises  with  which  St.  Paul  has  been  dealing ;  and  it  is 
this  proof  of  faith,  therefore,  which  he  now  proceeds  to 
examine. 

The  particular  promise  which  God  asked  the  man  at 
that  time  to  believe  was  this  :  That  when  he  was  ninety- 
nine  and  his  wife  ninety  a  son  should  be  born  to  them. 
On  this  Child  of  Promise  were  made  to  depend  all  the 
other  promises — numerous  descendants,  the  land  of  in- 
heritance, a  perpetual  covenant  and  seed  in  whom  all 
earth's  families  should  be  blessed.  Messiah  Himself  (as 
Abraham  well  knewf),  as  well  as  all  else  that  went 
with  the  seed  of  promise,  hung  upon  the  supernatural 
birth  of  Isaac.  To  believe  in  this  explicit  word :  "  I  will 
bless  Sarah  aud  give  thee  a  son  also  of  her,  .  .  .  and  I  will 
establish  My  covenant  with  him" — was  to  believe  sub- 
stantially in  the  whole  of  God's  grace  to  men  in  so  far  as 
it  was  then  revealed.  It  was  Gospel  faith  so  far  as  there 
was  yet  any  Gospel  on  earth  to  put  faith  in.  Faith  is 
a  living  personal  attachment  to  God  by  an  absolute  trust 
in  Him  and  in  every  word  He  speaks.  Such  faith  in  God 
is  one  and  the  same  whether  He  has  told  us  much  or  little. 
Dimly  and  far  off  Abraham  saw  that  through  the  birth  of 
a  son  when  he  was  past  age  the  day  of  Christ,  that  promised 

*  Heb.  xi.  8-10 ;   17-19. 

t  Compare  Christ's  words  in  John  viii.  56. 


A  CRUCIAL  CASE.  I  I  I 

Saviour  and  Seed  of  blessing,  was  somehow  to  draw  nigh ; 
and  at  God's  bare  word  he  risked  his  spiritual  life  upon 
that  hope. 

This  was  his  faith.  Now  note  its  characteristics.  On 
the  one  side  lay  the  improbabilities  of  an  unheard-of 
miracle ;  a  future  miracle,  too,  to  be  believed  in  before  it 
happened  ;  a  needless  miracle,  even,  so  far  as  man's  reason 
could  discern ;  for  was  not  Ishmael  already  there,  a  dear 
son  of  Abraham's  body  ?  On  the  other  side,  what  was 
there  ?  Nothing  but  a  word  of  God.  Between  these  two 
conflicting  grounds  of  expectation  a  weaker  faith  than  his 
might  have  wavered  or  swayed  in  hesitation  from  side  to 
side — looking  now  to  the  natural  probabilities  and  now  to 
the  divine  authority,  uncertain  how  the  issue  might  turn 
out  at  last.  Abraham  was  not  weak  in  faith.  Therefore, 
he  did  not  shrink  (as  a  feeble  believer  might  have  done) 
from  considering  the  physical  obstacles  to  the  birth  of  a 
son.  On  the  contrary,  he  could  afford  to  fasten  his  regard 
on  these,  without  his  confidence  in  the  promise  suffering 
any  diminution;*  since  he  kept  no  less  clearly  in  view 
the  character  of  the  Almighty  Promiser.  God  is  the 
Quickener  of  the  dead.  He  calls  things  which  are  not  as 
if  they  were  things  which  are.  He  can  give  a  name  and 
virtual  existence  to  the  yet  unbegotten  child.  It-aac  lives 
in  God's  counsel  and  purpose  before  he  has  actual  being. 
Against  outward  experience,  therefore,  with  no  tangible 
basis  for  such  a  hope,  Abraham  dares  to  trust  in  the  hope 
of  paternity  given  him  of  God.  Thus  he  gave  God  glory, 
by  honouring  the  truthfulness  of  His  word  and  the  power 
of  His  grace.  Such  is  faith :  so  it  always  works.  With- 
out calling  its  eyes  ofif  from  the  objections  and  difficulties 

*  This  rests  on  the  true  reading  (omitting  6v  in  verse  19  on  the  authority 
of  the  best  MSS).  which  has  now  been  made  known  to  the  English  reader 
through  the  corrections  of  the  Revisers. 


1 1  2  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

which  are  present  to  sense,  it  fastens  itself,  nevertheless, 
on  the  veracity  of  Him  who  speaks  words  of  grace  to  men. 
Where  it  is  weak,  it  will  hesitate ;  but  where  it  is  strong, 
it  is  assured  that  what  God  has  promised  He  is  able  to  do. 
Its  essence  is  that  it  gives  God  glory  by  holding  to  Him 
against  all  appearances  and  all  comers. 

These  things  were  not  written  for  Abraham's  sake  alone; 
they  were  written  for  ours.  Abraham  trusted  in  God  to 
quicken  his  unborn  son — by  and  by  to  raise  him  (if  need 
were)  from  the  dead.  We  trust  Him  who  did  quicken  in 
the  flesh  and  raise  from  the  dead  His  own  supernatural 
Son  Jesus.  The  Gospel  facts,  the  Gospel  promises,  and 
the  blessings  of  the  new  covenant  in  Christ,  are  to  us  what 
the  birth  of  Isaac  was  to  Abraham :  things  all  of  them 
beyond  the  reach  of  experience  or  against  it — things  past 
or  future  or  absent  or  spiritual — things  in  one  way  or 
another  undiscerned  by  sense  and  to  reason  improbable ; 
resting  for  their  evidence  solely  on  the  word  of  the  living 
God.  To  that  man  they  are  very  real  things — more  real 
than  anything  else — who  believes  in  God  before  all  others. 
To  other  men,  they  are  quite  unreal,  shadowy,  phantom- 
like, unbelievable.  Such  a  faith  in  God  is  reckoned  for 
righteousness  to  every  man  who  has  it,  just  as  it  was  to 
Abraham,  the  father  of  all  believers. 


(     113     ) 


CHAPTER  X. 

IMMEDIATE  RESULTS  OF  JUSTIFICATION. 

"  Being  therefore  justified  by  faith,  let  us  have  peace  with  God  through 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  through  whom  also  we  have  had  our  access  by  faith 
into  this  grace  wherein  we  stand  ;  and  let  us  rejoice  in  hope  of  the  glory  of 
God.  And  not  only  so,  but  let  us  also  rejoice  in  our  tribulations  :  knowing 
that  tribulation  worketh  patience  ;  and  patience,  probation  ;  ami  probation, 
hope  :  and  hope  putteth  not  to  shame  ;  because  the  love  of  God  hath  been 
shed  abroad  in  our  hearts  through  the  Holy  Ghost  which  was  given  unto  vis. 
For  while  we  were  yet  weak,  in  due  season  Christ  died  for  the  ungodly.  For 
scarcely  for  a  righteous  man  will  one  die  :  for  peradventure  for  the  good  man 
some  one  would  even  dare  to  die.  But  God  commcndeth  his  own  love  toward 
us,  in  that,  while  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us.  Much  more  then, 
being  now  justified  by  his  blood,  shall  we  be  saved  from  the  wrath  of  God 
through  him.  For  if,  while  wo  were  enemies,  we  were  reconciled  to  God 
through  the  death  of  his  Son,  much  more,  being  reconciled,  shall  we  be  saved 
by  his  life ;  and  not  only  so,  but  we  also  rejoice  in  God  through  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  through  whom  we  have  now  received  the  reconciliation." — 

KOM.  V.  1-1 1. 

^THE  leading  steps  in  St.  Paul's  argument  pursued  through 
-^  the  preceding  chapters  of  this  epistle  have  been,  in 
brief,  these : — 

I.  The  world  needed  a  new  way  to  righteousness  to 
be  revealed,  because  all  men  were  alike  condemned  and 
guilty.  Pagan  religion  had  issued  in  extreme  moral 
corruption.  Hebrew  religion  with  its  better  light  had 
only  made  Hebrew  vice  more  conspicuous  and  inexcus- 
able. Neither  pagans  nor  Hebrews  knew  how  to  clear 
themselves  at  heaven's  bar  from  the  one  fatal  charge  of 
sin.  On  the  contrary,  whatever  religious  light  was  to 
be  found  on  earth  only  set  in   more  painful  relief  the 

H 


114    TH^  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

extent  of  their  guilt  and  the  inevitableness  of  judgment 
(i.  i8-iii.  20). 

2.  But  now  a  fresh  ground  of  acquittal  from  guilt,  long 
heralded  through  a  series  of  prophets,  has  been  actually 
discovered  to  men's  eyes  in  the  incarnation  and  passion 
of  the  Son  of  God.  The  crucifixion  of  Jesus  Christ  as  a 
propitiatory  victim,  is  a  fact  which  has  at  length  explained 
to  us  God's  strange  forbearance  all  through  the  ages  with 
the  unexpiated  sins  of  mankind,  and  makes  it  now  a  just 
thing  for  Him  to  acquit  from  guilt  every  sinner  who  trusts 
in  Him:  that  is,  to  ^'justify  them  freely  in  His  grace" 
(iii.  21-26). 

3.  This  levelling  truth  strikes  at  the  root  of  Jewish 
arrogance  and  self-righteousness,  by  treating  all  men  alike, 
heathen  or  Jew,  on  precisely  the  same  terms.  It  makes 
no  account  of  the  boasted  Law  of  Moses  as  a  ground  of 
acceptance  with  God.  At  the  same  time,  it  does  not  at 
all  invalidate  the  Mosaic  Law  in  its  own  place.  It  can- 
not do  so,  indeed ;  because  God's  original  covenant  with 
Abraham  himself  and  his  seed  after  him,  on  which  the 
Mosaic  legislation  afterwards  came  to  rest,  was  a  covenant 
the  essential  condition  of  which  was  faith.  Abraham 
himself  was  accepted  into  divine  favour,  in  a  state  of 
uncircumcision,  solely  on  the  ground  that  he  was  a  be- 
liever. In  fact,  no  more  conspicuous  example  can  be 
found  to  illustrate  the  doctrine  that  it  is  by  faith,  not 
works,  we  are  to  be  justified,  than  the  great  father  of 
the  covenant  people  who  is  also  the  father  of  all  believers 
(iii.  27-iv.  25). 

By  this  prolonged  course  of  reasoning  the  Apostle  has 
not  only  established,  but  also  defended  against  objections 
from  the  side  of  Judaism,  his  first  main  position  laid  down 
at  the  opening  of  the  epistle ;  to  wit,  that  in  the  Gospel 
God's-righteousness-by-faith  has   been  revealed  for  men 


IMMEDIATE  KESULTS  OF  JUSTIFICATION.         I  I  5 

to  put  their  faith  in  (i.  17).  The  next  great  part  of  his 
task  which  opens  now  before  him,  is  to  prove  with  equal 
force  that  the  Gospel,  in  virtue  of  its  revealing  God's- 
righteousness-by-faith,  possesses  a  divine  power  able  to 
save  believers  out  of  sin  and  death  into  the  eternal  life 
of  holiness.*  In  other  words,  and  in  more  technical 
language,  St.  Paul  has  still  to  show  how  justification  by 
faith  leads  to  a  sanctified  life,  animated  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
and  ending  in  the  life  everlasting. 

Here,  then,  we  have  reached  a  turning  point  in  the 
development  of  the  Apostle's  teaching.  One  chapter,  so 
to  say,  is  closed  :  the  chapter  whose  title  might  be — "  An 
exposition  and  defence  of  justification  by  faith  in  Christ 
without  the  deeds  of  the  Law."  Another  chapter  is  about 
to  open :  a  chapter  whose  title  might  be  something  like 
this:  "The  moral  and  spiritual  results  of  justification  by 
faith  in  the  experience  of  the  believer."  To  unfold  these 
results ;  to  show  that,  so  far  from  the  new  teaching  about 
justification  encouraging  men  in  sin  (as,  on  a  superficial 
view,  it  might  be  supposed  to  do),  it  affords  the  only 
security  for  practical  holiness;  and  to  trace  the  growth 
of  a  believer's  spiritual  life  from  the  moment  of  his  justi- 
fication till  it  ends  in  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children 
of  God ; — this  continues  to  be  his  theme  down  to  the  end 
of  the  eighth  chapter.  It  is  a  theme  on  which  his  elo- 
quence deepens  and  waxes  more  warm  till  it  closes  with 
a  burst  of  triumphant  thanksgiving. 

In  proceeding  to  study  this  section  of  the  epistle,  we 
have  first  to  examine  its  opening  paragraph  with  care. 
We  shall  find  that  in  these  stirring  verses  (ch.  v.  i-ii) 

*  This  is  the  thesis  stated  in  ch.  i.  16  :  "The  Gospel  is  the  power  of 
God  unto  salvation  to  every  one  that  believeth."  To  this  ultimate  thesis, 
the  subordinate  one  in  ch.  i.  1 7,  already  discussed,  is  meant  to  lead  up. 


1 1 6         THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

St.  Paul  has  made  this  much  at  least  plain — That  God's 
Gospel  way  of  justifying  a  sinner  on  his  believing  affords 
the  most  ample  ground  to  hope  for  the  ultimate  and  complete 
salvation  of  every  heliever. 

How  that  hope  is  to  be  realised,  the  Apostle  does  not 
as  yet  say.  Into  the  connection  between  a  justified  state 
and  a  holy  life,  he  does  not  as  yet  enter.  The  rationale 
of  a  believer's  sanctification — its  difficulties — its  motives  ; 
the  whole  of  the  inner  or  subjective  effects  of  faith  in 
Christ  upon  the  moral  nature  of  a  man; — these  things 
are  postponed  for  the  present.  Taking  his  stand  simply 
on  the  bare  fact  of  justification  through  faith  in  Christ's 
atonement,  and  speaking  in  the  name  of  his  justified  fellow- 
believers,  St.  Paul  states  the  earliest  and  most  obvious 
result  of  such  a  doctrine  to  be  this  :  that  he  who  accepts 
it  cannot  help  expecting  with  a  triumphant  expectation 
that  it  will  conduct  him  at  last  to  a  most  glorious  deliver- 
ance from  evil.  To  be  acquitted  of  guilt  through  the  death 
of  Jesus  is  the  most  elementary  blessing-  which  the  Gospel 
fetches  to  our  condemned  race,  shut  up  in  its  prison-house 
of  wrath.  But  it  cannot  come  alone.  It  opens  a  door  of 
hope  through  which  each  reconciled  sinner  may  look  for- 
ward into  a  whole  new  world  of  lovely  blessings  following 
in  its  train.  Hope  is  the  key-word  of  this  section,  there- 
fore— exultant  hope  of  future  glory ;  and  the  three  ideas 
which  successively  emerge  in  its  very  rich  and  vivid  sen- 
tences are  these : — i.  Our  hope  reposes  on  this  new  relation, 
established  betwixt  us  and  God,  that  we  are  at  peace  with 
Him.  2.  Our  hope  is  not  impaired,  but  confirmed,  by  our 
present  tribulation.  3.  Our  hope  is  warranted  by  the  proof 
which  we  already  possess  of  the  love  of  God  for  us. 

A  few  words  ought  to  make  each  of  these  points  easy  to 
any  careful  reader. 

I.  There  is  room  now  in  men's  hearts  for  the  hope  that 


IMMEDIATE  RESULTS  OF  JUSTIFICATION.         I  I  7 

God  will  bless  them  with  that  glory  which  is  His  own 
blessedness,  since  now  they  are  at  peace  with  Him  (verses 
I,  2).  This  "  peace  luith  God,"  or  ''  with  respect  to"  God 
(irpo^),  which  Paul  says  believers  have  through  their  justi- 
fication, is  probably  neither  their  changed  feelings  toward 
God  in  Christ,  nor  their  peace  of  conscience  when  assured 
of  pardon,  nor  that  deep  peace  of  the  spirit  which  is 
Christ's  bequest  and  which  passes  understanding.  It  is 
true,  no  doubt,  that  the  peace  of  reconciliation  with  God 
ought  to  mirror  itself  within  the  heart  in  such  a  placid 
and  serene  state  of  soul — a  holy  calm  at  the  centre  of  the 
life.  But  this  "  peace  with  God,"  which  is  the  immediate 
sequel  to  "being  justified,"  must  describe  not  a  feeling,  in 
the  first  instance,  but  rather  a  relationship  betwixt  man 
and  God,  out  of  which  changed  feelings  may  spring. 
Friendly  affections  grow  out  of  friendly  or  pacific  relations 
between  two.  The  new  relations  created  by  our  being 
^'justified  out  of  faith"  ai-e  brought  about  by  a  reversal  of 
attitude  on  both  sides.  It  lies,  however,  in  the  nature  of 
the  case  that  this  movement  from  an  armed  to  a  peaceful 
attitude,  should  imply  first  a  change  on  the  part  of  God 
and  then  also  on  the  sinner's  part  as  well.*  Such  a  change 
is  due  in  the  first  instance  to  the  satisfying  or  atoning 
work  of  the  Son.  Not  that  God  could  possibly  hate  His 
sinful  creature.  He  hateth  nothing  that  He  hath  made, 
and  the  Gospel  itself  is  a  revelation  of  the  extent  to  which 
He  cherished  "  love  for  mankind."t  But  He  does  hate 
sin — the  one  thing  which  He  hath  not  made ;  and  men's 
sin,  so  long  as  it  was  unexpiated  or  unatoned  for,  forced 

*  The  Revisers  have  adopted  the  reading  ^xwyuei*  in  verse  I  ("Let  us 
have  peace  ")  and  if  that  be  finally  accepted,  we  shall  have  to  choose 
betwixt  two  possible  senses  :  either — "Let  us  acquiesce  or  rest  in  our  new 
pacific  relations  in  respect  of  God,"  or  "Let  us  cultivate  the  peaceful  feel- 
ings towards  God  which  spring  out  of  those  relations." 

t  Cf.  (piXavdpojTrta  in  Titus  iii.  4. 


I  l8    THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

Him  into  an  attitude  of  painful  and  reluctant  antago- 
nism, both  personally  (if  one  dare  say  so)  and  judicially. 
Antagonism  is  not  hatred.  It  is  not  even  the  same  thing 
as  dislike.  On  the  contrary,  it  may  coexist  with  the  most 
tender  affection.  After  Absalom  had  avenged  his  sister 
by  assassinating  his  ha]f-brother,  the  sorrowing  king  and 
father  refused  to  receive  the  murderer  at  court,  although 
all  the  while  his  heart  longed  to  go  forth  to  his  favourite. 
So  were  we  to  God,  our  tenderest  Father,  as  that  mis- 
guided fratricide  was  to  David  during  the  five  long  years 
of  his  banishment.  God's  face  was  of  necessity  the  face 
of  an  adversary  to  His  disloyal  and  criminal  sons.  Apart 
from  the  atonement,  contemplated  if  not  yet  accomplished, 
He  could  not  look  on  us  ;  He  could  not  have  us  near  Him  ; 
He  could  not  speak  to  us  words  of  friendship.  It  may 
have  been  a  greater  trial  by  far  to  Him  than  it  was  to 
us.  Still,  a  wicked  man  exposed  to  the  wrath  of  the 
Judge,  with  his  evil  deeds  lying  unatoned  upon  his  con- 
science, can  never  more  be  called  "My  friend,"  by  the 
ever  blessed  and  most  pure  Jehovah ;  while  we,  on  our 
part,  so  long  as  we  were  unforgiven,  were  "  enemies  in  our 
minds  through  wicked  works,"  disliking  God  and  resenting 
His  claims. 

See  what  a  mighty  revolution  Christ's  death  wrought ! 
It  restored  the  right  relationship  by  making  satisfaction 
for  human  guilt.  His  blood  was  the  propitiation — the 
peace-offering — for  our  crime.  The  obstacle  which  before 
had  legally  barred  a  sinful  man's  admission  into  friend- 
ship, was  taken  out  of  the  way ;  and  by  the  death  of 
the  Expiator  we  "  have  now  had  our  access "  into  the 
favour  of  God.  The  offence  being  undone,  the  offended 
One  is  offended  no  longer.  The  "tremendous''  Judge 
whom  (against  His  will)  our  sin  had  armed  and  arrayed 
against  our  life,  is  become  our  willing  Friend.     A  blessed 


IMMEDIATE  RESULTS  OF  JUSTIFICATION.         II 9 

Mediator  has  brought  us  near  who  were  far  off,  and  set  us 
in  the  place  of  favour.  So  soon  as  we  become  penitent 
believers,  we  enjoy  access,  by  means  of  our  faith  in 
Christ,  into  this  favour  of  the  Father  (verse  i ) ;  and 
standing  in  that  grace,  it  is  now  possible  for  us  to  hope 
that  we  shall  one  day  see  and  share  the  glory  of  God 
(verse  2).  Before,  it  was  not  possible  to  hope.  Enemies 
of  God  could  never  expect  to  behold  His  glory,  or  be 
satisfied  with  His  likeness.  His  friends  may.  Greater 
than  the  change  from  midnight  to  noonday  ;  more  blessed 
than  from  horror  to  triumph  :  is  this  sudden  change  in 
the  face  of  God  towards  His  human  creature !  For  aversion, 
favour ;  for  threats,  welcome ;  for  condemnation,  compla- 
cency ;  for  a  frown,  a  smile.  All  that  in  Him  ;  and  in  our 
hearts,  therefore,  for  blank  despair  of  good,  a  new-born 
hope  of  coming  glory  !  Standing  thus  near,  within  sight 
of  the  eye  that  kindles  with  a  divine  delight  over  His 
banished  brought  back ;  standing  thus  near,  introduced 
by  the  hand  that  was  pierced,  and  accepted  in  the  Beloved 
who  was  slain — what  is  there  for  a  justified  believer  to 
fear  ?     What  is  there  not  for  him  to  hope  ? 

2.  It  is  far  off,  that  glory  of  God  which  we  hope  for. 
At  least,  it  is  still  in  the  future.  The  present  is  for 
all  of  us  a  life  of  trouble.  For  Christian  believers  in  St. 
Paul's  day,  it  was  eminently  a  lifetime  of  trouble.  Does  not 
this  present  pressing  trouble  of  life,  then,  put  such  boastful 
hope  in  a  coming  glory  to  shame  ?  Our  mean,  grieved, 
dying  days,  do  they  not  flout  and  mock  at  such  splendid 
expectations  ?  Quite  the  contrary.  In  the  long  run,  life's 
trouble  is  found  rather  to  confirm  our  hope.  How  so? 
Why,  in  this  way.  Trouble  works  in  us,  if  we  are  true 
believers,  a  steadfast  endurance  in  the  exercise  of  our  faith 
— a  holding  on  and  holding  out  to  the  end.  The  Chris- 
tian who  thus  perseveres  under  trouble,  is  an  approved  or 


I  20  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

accredited  believer.*  Having  stood  that  test,  his  faith  is 
found  genuine:  neither  a  simulated  confidence  in  God 
and  His  Christ,  nor  a  shallow,  short-lived  growth  which 
withers  in  sun  heat ;  but  a  real,  deep  trust  of  the  heart, 
such  as  lives  and  works  and  overcomes.f  Is  it  not  clear 
that  when  the  tested  Christian  finds  his  faith  has  proved 
itself  thus  genuine,  his  hope  will  was  so  much  the  more 
confident  ?  There  was  hope  to  begin  with  ;  as  soon  as  he 
entered  into  the  peace  of  God,  the  believer  began  to  expect 
the  glory  of  God.  By  and  by,  through  a  roundabout  process 
of  trouble  working  perseverance,  and  perseverance  working 
approval,  and  approval  working  hope,  there  is  bred  within 
the  heart  an  increased  expectation  that  these  light  and 
momentary  afflictions  will  work  out  in  the  end  an  eternal 
weight  of  glory. { 

Not  in  any  vainglorious  temper  of  bravado,  therefore, 
like  fanatics  of  a  later  century  who  were  in  love  with  mar- 
tyrdom for  its  own  sake,  did  the  Christians  of  St.  Paul's 
day  glory  in  tribulations.  Yet  they  did  glory  in  them. 
Worldly  trouble  even  to  spoiling  and  stripes  they  went 
cheerfully  to  meet,  like  warriors  who  are  bound  to  win,  to 
whom  the  field  of  battle  seems  a  harvest-field  where 
sheaves  of  honour  and  of  gain  are  to  be  reaped.  As  the 
hope  to  be  one  day  glorified  with  the  glory  of  God  is  a 
thing  to  exult  in — the  very  boast  of  Christian  faith ;  so 
the  believer  learns  to  transfer  that  feeling  of  exultation 
even  to  those  afflictions  which  in  the  long  run  minister  to 
his  future  glory.  Thus  that  strangest  of  all  strange  para- 
doxes comes  true  on  Christian  lips :  ''  Not  only  so,  but  we 
boast  in  our  tribulations  also"  (verse  3). 

3.  Once  more,  the  triumphant  hope  of  a  justified  believer 

*  The  opposite  is  a86Kifio5.  +  Cf.  Melancthon  in  loc. 

t  As  a  close  parallel  to  the  text,  cf.  James  i.  12.  For  the  thought,  see 
also  2  Thess.  i.  4-7. 


IMMEDIATE  RESULTS  OF  JUSTIFICATION.         12  1 

in  what  God  is  yet  to  do  for  him,  finds  a  still  more  sure 
and  inexpugnable  foundation  of  fact  in  what  God  has 
already  done  to  prove  the  greatness  of  His  love.  This  is 
the  argument  which  fills  the  remainder  of  the  section 
(verses  5-1 1).  It  is  introduced  in  these  words:  "The 
hope  I  speak  of  does  not  put  us  to  shame  (by  disappointing 
us),  because  God's  love  for  us  has  been  poured  out  in  our 
hearts  through  means  of  the  Holy  Spirit  who  was  given 
to  us"  at  l^entecost  (verse  5).  This  love  of  God  for  us 
which  His  Spirit  pours  out  like  a  rich  fruitful  tide  within 
the  believer's  heart,  is  that  quite  unparalleled  love  evinced 
in  Christ's  death  for  us  while  we  were  yet  sinners  (verses 
6-S).  And  the  force  of  the  argument  by  which  we  infer 
from  it  that  we  may  expect  God  to  complete  His  saving 
work,  is  dwelt  on  in  this  d  fortiori  form  :  "  If  when  we 
were  still  hostile,  God  reconciled  us  by  the  death  of  His  Son, 
how  much  rather  is  it  to  be  believed,  that  now,  since  we 
are  His  friends,  He  will  save  us  by  His  Son's  life  ?  "  It 
appears  plain,  therefore,  that  Paul  regards  all  that  still 
remains  to  be  done  for  a  Christian  in  order  to  sanctify  him 
and  fit  him  for  final  glory  as  an  inferior  test  of  divine 
kindness,  costing  less,  and  therefore  less  improbable,  than 
what  God  already  did  in  the  sacrifice  of  Christ's  life.  He 
argues  from  the  greater  thing  to  the  less.  It  is  a  much 
higher  effort  of  generosity  to  reconcile  an  enemy  than  to 
save  a  friend.  How  much  more  true  is  this  when  to 
reconcile  your  enemy  costs  you  life  itself!  When  Christ 
died  God  afforded  such  a  proof  of  love  as  transcended 
human  example.  It  is  barely  possible  to  conceive  of  any 
man  volunteering  to  lose  his  own  life,  even  on  behalf  of 
a  just  man,  although  perhaps  a  few  rare  instances  may 
have  occurred  to  adorn  the  annals  of  human  nature,  in 
which  for  a  signally  kind  man  some  lover  or  friend  has 
been  found  to  die.     But  the  altogether  unexampled  feature 


122     THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

in  the  self-sacrifice  of  Christ  lies  here,  that  when  He  under- 
took to  reconcile  us  by  His  death,  we  were  still  ungodly- 
sinners  and  enemies  to  God.  His  great  love  was  the  love 
with  which  He  loved  us  even  when  we  were  dead  in  sins. 
It  was  this  very  sinfulness,  in  fact,  which  made  us  morally 
"  weak  "  and  helpless,  without  strength,  in  need  of  such 
a  Deliverer.  When  He  saw  us  thus  outcast  in  our  blood, 
defiled,  and  perishing  for  want  of  any  force  of  self-recovery, 
then  He  took  compassion  on  us,  and  at  the  right  moment 
— the  predicted  moment  of  our  most  extreme  and  manifest 
moral  need — Christ  the  Son  did  die  for  us !  This  proof 
of  love  was  supreme.  Love  was  put  then  to  its  hardest 
task.  It  did  not  fail  in  that  thing  which  was  greatest  ; 
why  should  it  fail  in  a  less  thing  ? 

It  is  thus  that  St.  Paul  explains  his  implied  statement, 
that  whatever  a  justified  believer  has  now  to  hope  for 
from  the  love  of  God  is  a  less  thing  than  the  death  of 
Christ.     On  two  sides  it  is  less  incredible  and  strange. 

For  one  thing,  God's  attitude  towards  us  is  now  changed 
for  the  better.  Instead  of  showing  kindness  to  sinners. 
He  has  now  to  show  it  to  justified  men.  Instead  of  being 
His  enemies  against  whom  He  had  a  just  ground  of  quarrel 
very  hard  to  be  got  over — we  are  His  friends,  reconciled 
to  His  favour  by  the  blood  of  His  Son.  Suppose,  there- 
fore, that  He  were  even  called  upon  to  do  for  us  now  as 
much  or  at  a  cost  as  grievous  to  Himself,  as  He  once 
did  when  Jesus  died,  would  not  the  love  which  went  to 
death  then  for  the  enemy,  be  more  likely  to  go  to  death 
a  second  time  for  the  friend  ? 

But  in  the  next  place,  it  is  no  such  grievous  thing  He 
needs  to  do  for  us  now.  To  reconcile  us  when  we  were 
alienated  by  our  crimes,  called  for  the  death  of  the  Ke- 
conciler.  To  save  us  now  and  bring  us  back  to  the  glory 
of  God,  is  to  be  the  work  of  the  Saviour's  life.     Not  now, 


IMMEDIATE  RESULTS  OF  JUSTIFICATION.         I  23 

as  once,  in  pain  and  toil  and  mortal  anguish,  must  the 
blessed  Eedeemer  throw  His  life  away  to  purchase  life  for 
His  unworthy  brothers.  All  that  which  had  to  be  done 
in  weakness,  on  earth,  by  mortal  endurance,  in  the  strain 
of  a  sin-bearing  agony,  has  been  done — done  by  His  love. 
What  remains  is  an  easier  task.  The  conquering,  uplifted 
Christ,  regnant  in  celestial  bliss,  with  matchless  resources 
at  command,  and  His  omnipotent  breath  penetrating  His 
Church — will  not  withdraw  His  hand  from  the  easy  com- 
pletion of  an  undertaking  the  first  half  of  which  has  been 
already  performed  in  tears  and  blood.  "  Reconciled  by  His 
death,  much  more  shall  we  be  saved  by  His  life !  " 

Only  seize  the  religious  meaning  of  the  death  of  Jesus 
Christ  as  developed  by  St.  Paul  in  these  wonderful  verses, 
and  everything  puts  on  a  new  face.  It  did  so  to  St.  Paul. 
This  world  had  become  a  new  world  to  him  since  Jesus 
Christ  had  died.  Before  that  decease  was  accomplished  at 
Jerusalem,  the  human  race  lay  sunk  in  hopeless  guilt, 
held  in  bonds  by  the  inexpiable  vengeance  of  heaven,  with 
the  blackness  of  death  shrouding  its  hereafter.  There  was 
war  betwixt  earth  and  heaven.  The  solitary,  damning  fact 
of  sin  severed  man  from  his  Maker.  God  was  justly  dis- 
pleased and  hostile.  In  all  this  world  reigned  only  gloom. 
Death  stalked  through  and  through  among  the  homes  of 
men,  sole  crowned  king  and  lord  of  all.  But  now,  what 
a  change!  God's  attitude  is  changed.  He  is  our  judicial 
adversary  no  longer.  Whereas  there  lay  on  our  hearts  the 
intolerable  sense  of  His  infinite  disapproval  and  displea- 
sure, now  we  have  peace  with  Him.  He  is  just,  and  yet 
He  is  able  to  justify  us  through  the  expiation  of  His  Son. 

This  life,  too,  is  changed.  Its  troubles  press  still  upon 
us,  but  they  no  longer  mean  what  they  meant  before. 
Before,  they  seemed  to  be  presages  of  a  vengeance  to 
come ;  part  of  that  war  which  God  or  fate  was  bent  on 


124  I^IIE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

waging  against  human  joy.  Men  took  them  for  the 
vengeful  or  the  spiteful  stings  of  a  Power  that  grudged 
happiness  to  mortals.  Now,  we  are  God's  friends;  and 
the  afflictions  which  still  come  thick  and  fast  into  our 
days  can  be  nothing  worse  than  experiments  upon  our 
confidence  in  Him ;  a  well-meant  discipline  bracing  our 
hearts  to  a  more  manly  faith  and  vindicating  the  sincerity 
of  our  attachment  to  Him,  whom,  though  He  slay  us,  we 
still  can  trust.  When  we  have  withstood  such  a  test,  we 
can  even  turn  round  and  rejoice  in  it. 

Last  of  all,  the  future  is  changed.  The  leaden  pall  is 
lifted  which  overhung  man's  existence.  AVe  are  out  of 
the  pit  now  and  its  miry  clay,  with  our  feet  upon  a  rock. 
There  is  laid  open  a  pathway  which  will  lead  us  right  up 
and  out  into  the  light  of  paradise.  With  God  on  his  side, 
a  man  learns  to  have  boundless  anticipations.  Who  will 
say  that  anything  is  too  much  to  hope  for  a  creature  for 
whom  God  was  willing  to  die  ?  Sin  is  strong,  and  the 
bondage  to  it  is  a  wretched  thing.  The  flesh  is  weak,  and 
the  body  vile,  and  it  goes  swiftly  to  decay.  Creation 
groans  in  sympathy  with  groaning  humanity,  and  of  all 
men  the  Christian  saint  seems  in  this  life  to  be  the  most 
miserable  !  What  matters  it  ?  If  God  be  for  us,  who  can 
be  against  us?  If  God  spared  not  His  own  Son,  what 
will  He  not  freely  give  ?  Here  is  the  proof  of  His  love ! 
From  that  love  of  His  which  justified  us  by  His  own  blood, 
who  shall  separate  us  now  or  for  evermore  ?  Salvation  ! 
Yes :  from  all  that  man  needs  to  be  saved  from.  From 
"  sin,"  that  we  should  no  more  obey  it ;  from  the  ^'  wages 
of  sin  "  and  the  "  body  of  this  death ;  "  from  the  ^'  suffer- 
ings of  this  present  time,"  and  the  bondage  of  corruption, 
and  the  travail- pains  of  creation,  we  shall  be  saved  by  the 
life  of  Him  who  died  for  us.  We  shall  have  His  new, 
risen  life,  which  is  eternal  life.     We  shall  have  quickened 


IMMIiDIATE  RESULTS  OF  JUSTIFICATION.        I  25 

bodies  and  freedom  as  of  God's  sons,  and  tlie  image  of  the 
Firstborn.  The  very  glory  of  God  opens  out  to  the  vision 
of  our  hope. 

Such  a  change  wrought  upon  the  whole  spiritual  horizon 
of  man  by  the  death  of  Christ — a  change  infinitely  more 
striking  and  joyful  than  when  day  dawns  upon  dreary 
night  and  all  things  live  again — explains  the  singularly 
triumphant  tone  of  this  paragraph.  Again  and  again  Paul 
uses  words  of  boasting.  "  We  boast  in  hope  " — he  says  in 
the  original — "  we  boast  in  tribulations  " — above  all  and 
greatest  of  all,  "  we  boast  in  God."  The  word  in  all  these 
expressions  is  the  same;  and  it  denotes  the  proud  joy 
which  men  feel,  not  so  much  over  their  own  good  fortune 
as  over  the  nobleness  or  the  honour  of  one  who  has  made 
them  glad.  It  is  a  wonderful  thing  for  a  man  to  be  proud 
of  God :  to  feel  that  his  own  blessedness  and  salvation  are 
so  mixed  up  with  the  glory  of  Him  who  saves  and  blesses 
that  he  can  merge  his  personal  satisfaction  in  a  rapture  of 
adoring  confidence  and  worship.  Yet  this  is  what  Christ's 
death  enables  the  justified  believer  to  do.  Such  a  display 
of  divine  love — stooping  to  die  for  sinners  and  reconciling 
enemies  at  the  price  of  blood — puts  into  the  mouth  of  each 
reconciled  enemy  a  marvellous  hymn  of  praise.  It  is  much 
to  know  that  we  are  safe :  it  is  more  to  have  such  a 
Saviour.  It  is  much  to  reason,  with  a  consoling  and 
heavenly  logic,  that,  "  if,  while  we  were  enemies,  we  were 
reconciled  by  the  Son's  death,  much  more,  being  recon- 
ciled, we  shall  be  saved  by  His  life."  But  it  is  even  a 
greater  thing  to  add,  in  a  self-forgetting  worship  of  gene- 
rosity so  divine :  "  Not  only  so,  but  we  also  boast  in  God 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  through  whom  we  have 
now  received  such  a  reconciliation ! " 


(       126      ) 


CHAPTER  XI. 

A  HISTORICAL  PARALLEL. 

"Therefore,  as  through  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and  death 
through  sin  ;  and  so  death  passed  unto  all  men,  for  that  all  sinned  : — for  until 
the  law  sin  was  in  the  world  :  but  sin  is  not  imputed  when  there  is  no  law. 
Nevertheless  death  reigned  from  Adam  until  Moses,  even  over  them  that  had 
not  sinned  after  the  likeness  of  Adam's  transgression,  who  is  a  figure  of  him 
that  was  to  come.  But  not  as  the  trespass,  so  also  is  the  free  gift.  For  if  by 
the  trespass  of  the  one  the  many  died,  much  more  did  the  grace  of  God,  and 
the  gift  by  the  grace  of  the  one  man,  Jesus  Christ,  abound  unto  the  many. 
And  not  as  through  one  that  sinned,  so  is  the  gift :  for  the  judgment  came 
of  one  unto  condemnation,  but  the  free  gift  came  of  many  trespasses  unto 
justification.  For  if,  by  the  ti-espass  of  the  one,  death  reigned  through  the 
one ;  much  more  shall  they  that  receive  the  abundance  of  gi'ace  and  of  the 
gift  of  righteousness  reign  in  life  through  the  one,  even  Jesus  Christ.  So  then 
as  through  one  trespass  the  judgment  came  unto  all  men  to  condemnation  ;  even 
so  through  one  act  of  righteousness  the  free  gift  came  unto  all  men  to  justifi- 
cation of  life.  For  as  through  the  one  man's  disobedience  the  many  were 
made  sinners,  even  so  through  the  obedience  of  the  one  shall  the  many 
be  made  righteous.  And  the  law  came  in  beside,  that  the  trespass  might 
abound  ;  but  where  sin  abounded,  grace  did  abound  more  exceedingly  :  that, 
as  sin  reigned  in  death,  even  so  might  grace  reign  through  righteousness  unto 
eternal  life  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." — Rom.  v.  12-21. 

TT  has  already  been  seen  how  St.  Paul  in  the  previous 
•  portion  of  this  chapter  describes  the  immediate  effects 
of  our  justification  through  faith  in  the  atonement  of 
Christ.  That  atonement,  he  has  shown,  profoundly  altered 
for  the  better  the  attitude  of  God  toward  mankind.  To 
believe  in  it  is  to  enter  into  peace  with  God.  Thus  there 
iias  been  opened  up  to  faith  a  hope  of  ultimate  deliverance 
from  every  form  of  evil. 


A  HISTORICAL  PARALLEL.  I  2^ 

In  the  rest  of  the  chapter  the  Apostle  is  really  con- 
tinuing the  same  train  of  thought  through  a  further  stage. 
This  blessed  change  which  has  been  wrought  upon  the 
prospects  of  our  race  by  Christ  is  now  set  in  comparison 
or  contrast  with  the  doleful  effects  which  resulted  from 
the  fall  of  Adam.  By  thus  placing  Christ  as  the  ground 
of  our  justification  over  against  Adam  as  the  ground  of 
our  condemnation,  and  summarising  the  entire  history  of 
mankind  under  these  two  representative  men,  St.  Paul 
at  least  vindicates  the  principle  of  his  Gospel  from  the 
charge  of  novelty.  The  Gospel  proceeds  upon  the  same 
principle  which  had  previously  governed  the  divine  deal- 
ings with  our  race.  He  does  more :  he  brings  into  very 
powerful  relief  the  world-wide  inlluence  of  Christ's  work 
as  reversing  for  mankind — and  more  than  reversing — all 
the  ill  which  had  been  wrought  by  our  original  fall. 
Finally,  he  opens  up  afresh  to  our  hope  the  splendid  pro- 
spect, on  which  he  has  already  dwelt,  of  results  to  be 
developed  in  the  experience  of  believers  out  of  this  new 
Head  of  humanity. 

It  is  noticeable,  too,  that  not  only  does  the  Writer 
pursue  the  same  theme,  but  he  pursues  it  in  the  same  key. 
The  note  of  triumph  which  struck  upon  our  ear  in  verses  one 
to  eleven,  strikes  us  still  in  the  remainder  of  the  chapter. 
Nay,  the  very  form  of  the  Writer's  logic  remains  the  same. 
He  has  been  arguing  from  the  greater  to  the  less,  from 
the  major  thing  which  God  has  already  done  to  the  minor 
which  He  is  all  the  more  certain  to  do ;  and  it  is  on  a 
fortiori  grounds  that  he  still  proceeds  to  reason  in  his 
parallel  betwixt  Adam  and  Christ. 

The  paragraph  before  us  is  so  exactly  knit  into  one 
that,  to  be  understood  at  all,  it  needs  to  be  read  together. 
This  may  be  the  reason  why,  from  our  fragmentary 
fashion  of  taking  up  single  "  texts  "  many  readers  find  it 


1  28  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDlJSG  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

hard  to  understand.  Yet  it  is  not  really  difficult  to  follow. 
It  is  moreover  a  singularly  pregnant  and  valuable  passage. 
Not  only  does  it  afford  us  nearly  all  the  light  which  we 
possess  on  the  ground  of  original  sin  and  the  operation 
or  consequences  of  the  fall ;  it  opens  up  to  theology 
the  most  extensive  views  of  the  divine  dealings  with  our 
race.  By  grouping  the  destinies  of  mankind  historically 
under  its  two  heads — the  first  and  the  second — it  has 
gathered  up  for  us  the  whole  theory  of  human  ruin  and 
human  redemption  under  the  widest  synthesis  of  which 
Scripture  gives  us  any  suggestion.  Without  professing 
formally  to  expound  the  passage  in  detail,  far  less  to  work 
out  the  lines  of  speculation  to  which  it  gives  rise,  the 
design  of  this  chapter  (as  of  former  ones)  will  be  to  offer 
such  hints  on  the  course  of  the  Apostle's  reasoning  as 
may  assist  thoughtful  readers  to  grasp  for  themselves  the 
mind  of  the  Spirit. 

The  argument  is  to  turn  entirely  upon  a  parallel  betwixt 
the  effects  of  Adam's  sin  and  those  of  Christ's  righteous- 
ness. St.  Paul  is  accordingly  obliged  to  glance  backward 
upon  the  actual  results  which  followed  the  First  Man's 
first  transgression  of  law.  He  asserts  that  it  was  through 
that  one  man — nay,  through  one  act  of  that  one  man 
— that  sin  and  death  can  be  historically  proved  to  have 
entered  our  world  and  affected  disastrously  every  other 
individual  of  our  race.  As  this  is  the  basis  of  fact  on 
which  his  whole  reasoning  proceeds,  it  will  be  necessary, 
before  we  examine  the  use  which  he  makes  of  it,  to  glance 
first  at  the  event  itself  and  at  the  proof  for  it  which  is 
here  adduced. 

His  proof  is  itself  a  historical  one.  It  rests  on  the  un- 
doubted fact  that  from  the  fall  of  Adam  to  the  giving  of 
the  Law  by  Moses,  "  death,"  as  he  puts  it,  "  was  reigning 


A  HISTORICAL  PARALLEL.  I  29 

like  a  king"  (ver.  14).  The  peculiar  significance  of  this 
fact  must  have  been  very  obvious  to  St.  Paul's  own  mind ; 
for  at  first  he  does  not  appear  to  have  intended  to  explain 
it.  It  is  only  after  he  has  launched  upon  an  argument 
which  assumes  it  and  rests  upon  it  (ver.  1 2),  that  it  seems 
to  occur  to  him  how  every  reader  may  not  see  the  matter 
in  the  same  light  as  himself — not  see  it  at  least  clearly 
enough  to  follow  without  further  ado  the  steps  of  his 
reasoning.  This  explains  why  he  abruptly  halts,  breaks  off 
the  sentence  he  had  begun,  and  postpones  his  intended 
parallel  betwixt  our  death  through  Adam  and  our  life 
through  Christ,  in  order  to  interpolate  an  explanation  or 
proof  from  history  of  the  singular  effect  which  flowed  from 
"  Adam's  first  transgression."  The  fact  to  be  proved  (not 
assumed,  as  he  had  at  first  thought  of  doing)  is  this :  Sin 
and  death  spread  to  all  mankind  through  one  man.  The 
proof  is  this : — All  men  betwixt  Adam's  fall  and  the  giving 
of  the  Law,  millenniums  after,  died.  Why  did  they  die  ? 
Not,  argues  St.  Paul,  for  any  transgression  of  their  own. 
For  whose,  then  ?     For  Adam's. 

At  first  sight  this  argument  is  far  from  being  so  con- 
vincing to  the  reader  as  it  evidently  was  to  the  Writer. 
During  all  these  ages,  one  naturally  objects,  sin  was  in  the 
world,  just  as  it  is  in  the  world  now.  Why  should  they 
not  have  died  for  their  own  sin  ?  True,  is  Paul's  rejoinder ; 
"  previous  to  the  giving  of  the  Law  there  was  sin  in  the 
world : "  but  he  has  already  taught  us  to  discriminate 
betwixt  sin  committed  against  a  law  and  sin  committed 
without  a  law.  Without  a  law  sin  may  be  present  as  a 
defect  of  nature  or  fault  of  will — in  short,  as  moral  evil ; 
but  sin  as  a  violation  of  statute  can  enter  only  where  the 
statute  which  forbids  it  is  known.  To  describe  this  parti- 
cular species  of  sin — sin  done  in  wilful  breach  of  a  known 
commandment — St.  Paul  employs  a  particular  term.     He 

I 


1 30  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

calls  it  "  transgression ; "  and  already  in  an  earlier  passage 
of  this  Epistle  lie  has  laid  down  the  axiom  that  "  where 
no  law  is,  there  can  be  no  transgression"  (iv.  15).  This 
legal  axiom  he  now  supplements  by  a  second,  namely, 
that  "sin  is  not  imputed  when  there  is  no  law"  (v.  13). 
That  is  to  say,  transgression,  or  statutory  crime,  is  the 
only  description  of  sin  which  under  the  divine  adminis- 
tration is  charged  against  the  doer  of  it  as  the  ground  of 
his  condemnation.  Sin  done  in  the  absence  of  any  law 
to  forbid  it,  or  in  blameless  ignorance  of  any  such 
law,  is  still  sin,  of  course ;  it  is  moral  evil.  But  by  the 
first  axiom  "it  is  not  transgression" — that  is,  statutory 
crime;  and  therefore,  by  the  second  axiom,  "it  is  not 
imputed "  or  founded  upon  as  a  ground  of  condemnation 
in  law. 

Grant  St.  Paul  his  axioms  and  you  cannot  escape  hi3 
conclusion.  So  far  as  the  axioms  themselves  go,  all  that 
one  can  say  is,  that  however  consonant  they  may  be,  when 
stated,  to  the  justice  of  a  beneficent  Ruler  or  the  dictates 
of  an  enlightened  jurisprudence,  they  are  principles  which 
no  one  could  have  ventured  beforehand  to  afiirm  as  under- 
lying the  moral  administration  of  the  Most  High.  We 
might  have  supposed,  or  we  might  have  hoped,  that  the 
Divine  Judge  would  show  Himself  lenient  to  faults  of 
nature,  committed  in  a  state  of  involuntary  ignorance; 
but  we  never  could  have  laid  this  down  with  such  certainty 
and  universality  as  attach  to  St.  Paul's  statements.  He 
speaks  "  as  the  oracles  of  God,"  by  way  of  revelation,  when 
he  speaks  thus.  His  words  carry  with  them  all  the 
stronger  assurance  of  truth,  that  they  not  only  echo  the 
gracious  prayer  of  dying  love:  "Father,  forgive  them, 
for  they  know  not  what  they  do,"  but  are  in  entire  accord 
with  all  that  our  Lord  has  taught  us  concerning  Him  who 
is  perfect  love. 


A  HISTORICAL  PARALLEL.  I3I 

Turning  next  to  tlie  bearing  of  these  legal  maxims  upon 
the  position  of  men  "  from  Adam  until  Moses,"  one  cannot 
fail  to  see  that  it  applies  to  them  roundly,  yet  with  quali- 
fications. To  say  that  they  sinned  "without  law,"  and 
therefore  "  not  after  the  fashion  of  Adam's  transgression  " 
(ver.  14),  is  to  say  what  is  true  in  the  main,  but  only 
partially  true  of  some  of  them.  St.  Paul  himself  implies 
as  much  by  the  qualified  form  of  his  statement — ^^  even 
over  them  that  had  not  sinned  "  as  Adam  did.  It  is  true 
that  the  ages  before  Moses,  like  the  vast  heathen  world 
ever  since,  possessed  no  outward  or  written  statute  recog- 
nised to  have  come  from  heaven  which  denounced  death 
as  the  penalty  of  transgression,  such  a  statute  as  Adam  is 
related  to  have  had  before  them,  or  as  the  Jews  had  after 
them.  Therefore  men  could  not  then  break  the  statute  with 
their  eyes  open  in  the  same  degree.  Still  they  retained 
(as  in  his  opening  chapter  St.  Paul  has  already  taught) 
the  relics  of  natural  conscience,  testifying  to  the  eternal 
rules  of  right  and  wrong,  and  testifying  quite  clearly 
enough  to  render  some  of  them  at  least  inexcusable.  But 
in  many  of  them  even  this  natural  conscience  was  wholly 
undeveloped,  as  it  is  in  infants  or  in  idiots;  in  many 
more  it  was  a  distorted  faculty,  giving  false  judgments; 
in  all,  it  was  defective,  prescribing  only  certain  rules  of 
duty,  and  very  feebly  declaring,  if  it  declared  it  at  all, 
the  penalty  for  disobedience.  Besides,  this  inadequacy 
of  the  moral  sense  being  a  portion  of  that  subjection 
of  human  nature  to  the  consequences  of  transgression 
for  which  we  are  seeking  to  account,  needs  itself  to  be 
accounted  for. 

After  all  fair  deductions,  then,  to  the  universality  of 
Paul's  statement  have  been  allowed  for,  let  the  question 
be  put  broadly  :  Were  the  sins  of  our  race  committed  in 
the  ages  without  written  or  revealed  law  such  that,  Tiad 


132  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

there  heen  no  antecedent  transgression,  they  would  have 
been  in  the  bulk  of  cases  punishable  with  eternal  death  ? 
I  think  St.  Paul's  reasoning  compels  us  to  reply  that 
they  were  not.  In  other  words,  suppose  it  conceivable  for 
a  new-created  moral  agent  to  be  left  in  such  a  condition 
of  imperfect  knowledge  of  God's  will,  and  to  sin,  his  fall 
would  not  entail  such  a  penalty  as  actually  followed  upon 
the  transgression  of  Adam.  Here,  then,  were  men  dying 
for  thousands  of  years  under  a  penalty  which  was  origin- 
ally attached  to  the  express  violation  of  a  known  law,  but 
not  attached  to  such  sins  as  they  themselves  could  commit. 
Before  Adam  there  had  been  placed  a  command  with  a 
precise  warning  of  what  should  be  the  consequence  of  keep- 
ing or  of  breaking  it.  Deliberately  breaking  it,  he  died. 
But  his  posterity  could  not  so  sin.  Before  them  no  such 
positive  law  had  been  set.  To  them  no  such  consequences 
had  been  foretold.  They  made  no  such  deliberate  choice 
with  their  eyes  open.  Many  of  them  never  acted  with 
deliberation  at  all.  Yet  on  all  of  them  alike  falls  that 
same  penalty,  domineers  over  every  one  of  them  so  soon 
as  born.  There  is  the  fact.  Is  there  any  other  explana- 
tion of  it  except  St.  Paul's  ?  His  explanation  is,  they 
died  because  Adam  sinned.  They  died  because  the  sentence 
passed  on  the  First  Man  for  his  transgression  included  his 
posterity  in  its  sweep,  be  their  personal  offences  what 
they  might. 

This  mode  of  treating  a  whole  race  as  involved  in  the 
fate  of  its  progenitor  may  involve  difficulties  from  another 
side.  But  we  are  regarding  it  just  now  as  given  in 
the  facts  of  human  experience,  or,  if  you  will,  as  a  theory 
to  account  for  those  facts.  From  this  point  of  view  it 
can  scarcely  be  denied  that  it  does  supply  an  explanation 
for  what  must  otherwise  appear  inexplicable.  Moreover, 
if  it  be  once  admitted,  it  materially  alters  the  complexion 


A  HISTORICA L  PARALLEL.  1 3  3 

of  all  the  subsequent  sins  of  mankind.  Those  later  sins 
of  the  "  men  without  law,"  might  not  be  such  "  transgres- 
sions" as  of  themselves  to  entail  '^  death."  Yet  it  is 
impossible  to  cut  them  off  from  their  guilty  origin  in  the 
"  one  transgression  "  which  went  before.  Sin  is  a  heri- 
tage of  man — no  less  than  death.  It  cannot  be  treated  as 
an  original  flaw  in  his  constitution,  or  a  lapse  into  which 
he  has  fallen  unavoidably,  through  no  fault  of  his  own. 
If  the  race  be  one,  and  its  whole  sin  be  the  fruit  of  a 
single  culpable  and  deliberate  act  of  original  rebellion 
against  law,  then  it  is  clear  that  the  total  mass  of  moral 
evil  chargeable  upon  mankind  must  continue  to  be  stained 
throughout  with  the  dark  hue  of  its  origin. 

It  need  hardly  be  added  that  in  the  case  of  adults  who 
live  under  Christian  civilisation,  sin  has  to  a  great  extent 
recovered  the  type  of  Adam's  first  transgression.  The 
Law  has  long  since  been  republished  with  plain-spoken 
promises  and  penalties.  Most  of  us  have  chosen  evil  with 
the  clearest  knowledge  of  what  is  implied  in  such  a  choice. 
"  Like  Adam,  we  have  transgressed  the  covenant."  For 
this  we  are  of  course  separately  and  entirely  responsible. 
Still,  even  we,  no  less  than  the  men  from  Adam  to  Moses, 
can  be  proved  to  underlie,  in  the  first  instance,  the  penalty, 
not  of  our  own,  but  of  Adam's  sin.  For  we  have  not 
always  possessed  this  full  responsibility  for  our  evil  ac- 
tions. Time  was  when  we  too,  like  them,  had  "  no  law." 
As  children  we  knew  nothing  of  sin  or  duty,  of  the  Law- 
giver or  the  penalty.  Yet  we  sinned  then ;  and  we 
suffered  then.  Like  our  brethren  we  were  subject  then 
to  death.  Already  the  penalty  lay  upon  all  of  us  in  our 
cradles,  in  a  body  of  pain,  a  sickly  life,  a  frequent  peril  of 
death.  These  things  proved  us  to  be  under  sentence, 
while  as  yet  we  had  committed  no  sin  worthy  of  death. 
So  that  we  can  still  read  in  the  diseases  which  wait  around 


134    THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

the  crib  of  what  we  call  "  innocence,"  in  the  tears  which 
stain  the  opening  infancy  of  man,  and  in  the  graves  of 
little  children,  evidence  such  as  satisfied  St.  Paul  that  it 
was  "  through  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and 
death  through  sin ;  and  so  death  passed  unto  all  men,  for 
that  all  sinned"  (ver.  12,  E.V.). 

It  is  time,  however,  to  recall  to  recollection  that  all  this 
is  not  preliminary  merely,  but  parenthetic.  The  sweeping 
lapse  of  a  race  into  death  through  the  single  act  of  a  re- 
presentative man  is  not  St.  Paul's  main  concern.  He  has 
brought  it  in  by  way  of  illustration.  He  designs  to  run 
a  parallel  betwixt  it  and  the  method  of  our  justification 
through  Christ.  Now  that  it  has  been  briefly  proved  to  be 
a  fact,  he  is  prepared  at  the  close  of  ver.  14  to  resume  his 
interrupted  sentence  begun  in  ver.  12.  He  does  not  re- 
sume it.  He  does  not  say :  As  God  dealt  with  man  in 
Adam  bringing  judgment  and  death  through  one  man,  so 
does  He  deal  with  us  when  through  Christ's  obedience  we 
are  made  righteous.  The  reason  why  he  leaves  this  an 
unfinished  parallel  is  very  notable.  He  has  caught  sight 
of  differences  betwixt  the  two  cases  which  make  the 
parallel  in  some  points  a  contrast.  The  cases  are  similar, 
but  not  equal.  They  do  correspond,  yet  not  exactly.  God's 
treatment  of  us  in  Christ  answers  certainly  to  His  treat- 
ment of  us  in  Adam,  and  is  meant  to  make  that  other 
good ;  and  yet  it  is  not  just  coincident  or  conterminous 
with  that.  Is  there  any  shortcoming  ?  On  the  contrary, 
there  is  glorious  excess.  All  that  we  lost  in  Adam  is  far 
more  than  made  good  in  Christ.  This  is  the  contrast  of 
which  our  eager  Apostle  catches  a  foresight,  and  at  the 
sight  forbears  to  conclude  his  parallel.  Ere  he  has  well 
let  us  know  there  is  going  to  be  a  parallel  at  all,  he  takes 
fire  at  the  surpassing  excellence  of  grace  over  judgment, 


A  HISTORICAL  PAEALLEL.  1 35 

of  Christ  over  Adam;  and  abruptly  exclaims  (ver.  15): 
"  But  not  as  the  trespass,  so  also  is  the  free  gift !  " 

In  three  particulars,  according  to  St.  Paul,  does  the 
application  of  this  method  of  dealing  with  our  race  differ 
in  the  second  instance  of  it,  that  of  Christ,  from  the  former 
instance  of  Adam.  The  development  of  these  three  points 
of  difference,  with  a  view  to  show  how  in  each  of  them 
the  advantage  lies  with  the  Gospel  of  grace,  occupies  the 
remainder  of  our  section.  A  few  words  will  be  sufficient 
to  exhibit,  with  adequate  fulness,  the  argument  of  the 
Apostle  on  each  of  the  three. 

The  First  Point  of  Siqieriority  is  developed  in  ver.  1 5  : 
"  If  by  the  trespass  of  the  One,  the  many  died,  much  more 
did  the  grace  of  God,  and  the  gift  by  the  grace  of  the  One 
Man,  Jesus  Christ,  abound  unto  the  many." 

This  a  fortiori  argument  treats,  as  I  take  it,  of  logical 
certainty,  arising  out  of  the  inherent  probability  of  the 
two  cases.  Here  are  two  similar  procedures  on  the  part 
of  God,  by  which  a  vast  multitude  of  human  beings  is 
involved  in  each  case  in  the  fate  of  one  man.  The  prin- 
ciple is  identical  in  the  two.  It  is  the  principle  to  which 
divines  have  given  the  name  of  "  Covenant  Representation," 
or  of  "  Vicarious  Obedience."  It  simply  amounts  to  this, 
that  one  man  may  sustain  such  a  relation  of  unity  with 
many  other  men  that  he  can  justly  act  and  suffer  in  their 
name  or  on  their  behalf,  so  that  they  shall  be  involved  in 
the  consequences  of  his  conduct.  This  method  of  treating 
men  may  be  intelligible  to  us,  or  it  may  not.  It  may 
appear  fair  to  us,  or  it  may  not.  We  may  find  analogies 
to  it  in  the  ordinary  experience  of  families  and  peoples, 
or  we  may  find  none.  These  matters  are  not  here  in 
question.  As  a  fact  we  have  these  two  examples  of  it, 
and  no  more,  in  the  recorded  dealings  of  the  Almighty 
with  our  race  as  a  whole;  and  so  far  as  the  underlying 


136  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

principle  of  the  thing  goes,  the  one  example  is  just  as 
probable  or  improbable  as  the  other.  But  now  observe : 
the  one  application  of  the  principle  turns  out  to  be  a 
terrific  disaster  which  overwhelms  countless  millions  of 
unhappy  beings  in  the  judgment  and  ruin  that  overtake 
their  transgressing  representative.  The  other  is  a  blessed 
provision  of  God's  kindness  brought  in  to  remedy  the 
sad  efforts  of  the  former,  restoring  a  healthy  condition 
of  righteousness  and  moral  life  to  millions  of  these  lost 
people  through  the  action  of  a  better  and  abler  Eepre- 
sentative.  Place  these  two  over  against  one  another,  and 
say,  apart  from  experience,  which  of  them  possesses  the 
higher  probability.  Suppose  such  a  mode  of  treating 
men  to  be  barely  possible,  which  of  these  two  specimens 
of  it  should  one  rather  expect  to  see  realised  ?  Need  the 
answer  be  stated?  Well  now,  the  unlikely  is  a  fact. 
Say  what  you  please,  the  dark,  improbable,  mysterious 
scheme  of  representation  which  ruined  mankind,  involving 
us  all  in  judgment  and  death,  is  a  historical  certainty. 
Granted  that  it  is  a  very  strange  thing,  very  hard  to  credit 
and  quite  impossible  to  explain.  Still  it  has  happened; 
and  that  it  did  happen  surely  makes  the  splendid  parallel 
all  the  more  credible  and  certain. 

I  like  this  argument  because  it  takes  its  stand  on  the 
darkest  fact  in  man's  experience,  and,  out  of  the  very 
mystery  and  unlikelihood  of  that,  flashes  of  a  sudden,  a 
welcome  light.  It  bears  upon  us  in  two  ways.  First,  is 
the  reader  one  of  those  who  feel  the  fact  of  universal  con- 
demnation for  a  single  man's  sin  to  be  absolutely  bafiling 
and  the  next  thing  to  incredible  ?  Certainly  it  is  stagger- 
ing enough.  No  man  who  thinks  will  say  that  it  is  not 
an  oppressive  mystery.  The  humblest  piety  may  own 
that  it  raises  a  cloud  at  least  betwixt  the  soul  and  the 
clear  radiant  countenance  of  the  Most  Just  and  Merciful 


A  HISTOEICAL  PARALLEL.  1 37 

One.  If  that  be  so,  then  learn  the  best  use  to  be  made  of 
this  hard  fact.  If  anything  can  relieve  this  one  inex- 
plicable difficulty  in  the  divine  government,  it  must  be 
when  grace  pledges  itself  to  save  on  the  same  principle. 
Not  that  the  mere  repetition  of  a  doubtful  principle  can 
make  its  abstract  justice  a  whit  more  clear;  only  it  is 
something  to  discover  that  it  is  a  principle  or  rule  in  the 
divine  administration  of  mankind,  and  not  an  isolated 
occurrence.  There  comes  out  (to  say  no  more)  a  certain 
noble  consistency  in  God's  treatment  of  us,  and  a  proba- 
bility that  His  ways  admit  of  being  justified,  when  under 
a  system  of  Restoration  He  is  found  to  handle  us  precisely 
as  He  did  under  the  original  scheme  of  Probation.  May 
one  not  even  go  a  little  further  ?  There  is  in  the  system 
of  grace  the  most  appropriate  counterpart  you  could  ask 
for  to  the  system  of  probation.  When  the  very  principle 
which  on  its  first  application  in  Adam  worked  disaster, 
turns  its  hand,  so  to  say,  in  the  Gospel,  to  work  a  remedy 
for  its  own  ruin,  is  there  not  a  certain  poetical  justice,  or 
dramatic  completeness,  in  the  twofold  scheme?  May  not 
the  one  be  intended  to  be  read  in  the  light  of  the  other  ? 
Is  it  not  conceivable  that,  for  aught  we  men  of  narrow 
vision  can  tell,  both  applications  of  the  one  rule  to  the 
Two  Heads  of  Humanity  may  be  requisite  to  make  up 
that  plan  of  Omniscience,  of  which  each  were  but  a  broken 
part  ?  At  all  events,  one  thing  is  plain.  The  more  keenly 
any  one  feels  the  hardship  of  being  involved  without  his 
will  in  the  condemnation  of  another,  the  more  loudly  per- 
chance he  complains  of  that;  with  so  much  the  more 
joyous  eagerness  ought  he  to  embrace  the  parallel  way  of 
escape  which  has  been  brought  nigh  by  the  obedience  of 
Another.  Not  daring  to  question  that  it  was  justice 
which  presided  over  the  world's  fall,  yet  pondering  the 
solemn  shadow  which  that  fall  has  cast  over  the  ways  of 


138  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

God,  it  will  be  a  wise  man's  part  to  liail  with  humble 
thankfulness  that  gain  in  Christ  by  which  the  shadow 
has  been  rolled  away. 

Again :  are  you  one  who  stumbles,  not  at  the  fall  in 
Adam,  but  at  the  doctrine  of  a  free  pardon  in  Christ  apart 
from  merits  of  your  own  ?  You  dislike  the  Pauline  teach- 
ing that  a  sinner  may  be  instantly  acquitted  when  many 
better  men  are  condemned,  if  only  he  will  entrust  himself 
to  the  mediation  of  Christ  His  ^'  Righteousness."  Would 
you  rather  not  be  indebted  so  completely  for  your  hope  of 
heaven  to  the  merits  of  Another  ?  And  have  you  never 
considered  to  whom  you  are  indebted  for  your  sin  and 
condemnation  ?  Surely,  if  you  must  take  death  at  another 
man's  hand,  you  may  as  well  take  life  too  !  Is  it  not  idle  to 
quarrel  with  the  way  in  which  God  would  set  us  right, 
since  it  is  in  this  very  way  that  we  have  got  wrong? 
One  may  spare  oneself  these  gratuitous  misgivings  about 
justification  through  a  Substitute's  vicarious  work.  Folly 
to  pretend  a  difficulty  about  this  gnat,  when  I  am  com- 
pelled, whether  I  like  it  or  not,  to  swallow  down  that 
camel !  Rather  let  our  trust  fasten  itself  on  God's  excel- 
ling gift  of  grace;  for  certain  as  the  fact  is  of  death  in 
Adam,  the  assurance  of  life  in  Christ  is  (if  it  were 
possible)  still  more  certain.  Thank  God  for  this  first 
"much  more" ! 

A  Second  Point  of  Superiority  arises :  one  of  fact  no  less 
than  of  logic.  "Not  as  through  One  that  sinned,  so  is 
the  gift;  for  the  judgment  came  of  One  unto  condem- 
nation, but  the  free  gift  came  of  many  trespasses  unto 
justification"  (ver.  16,  R.  V.). 

In  order  to  men's  condemnation  there  needed  but  the 
one  trespass  of  Adam.  In  order  to  our  being  declared 
righteous,  there  need  "  many  trespasses  "  to  be  wiped  out 
in  blood.      For  we  have  made  the  redeeming  work  of 


A  HISTORICAL  PARALLEL.  1 39 

Jesus  far  heavier  than  Adam  left  it,  "adding"  our  own 
"  iniquity  unto  "  his.  It  is  perhaps  a  permissible  supposi- 
tion that  the  Eestorer's  work  might  have  followed  close 
on  the  fall,  anticipating  the  age-long  transgressions  of 
mankind  by  an  instantaneous  purging  of  the  "  first  trans- 
gression," and  replacing  of  the  lapsed  race  in  recovered 
purity.  There  would  in  that  event  have  been  no  room 
for  the  superiority  which  St.  Paul  seems  here  to  have  in 
his  eye.  But  it  pleased  the  Most  High  to  suffer  sin  to 
make  its  way  through  the  world,  spreading  with  the 
spread  of  men  and  strengthening  with  their  strength,  till 
it  had  abused  every  prerogative  of  manhood,  moulded 
after  its  will  the  civilisation  of  empires,  ripened  into 
gigantic  heads  of  crime,  and  grown  to  be  a  burden  intoler- 
able to  the  earth.  Nay,  He  actually  gave  a  Law  on  purpose 
that  sin  might  become  ^'transgression,"  and  that  trans- 
gression might  "abound."  Then  at  length  came  the 
*'  free  gift "  of  an  atonement  which  covered  all. 

Not  otherwise  do  we  find  it  to  happen  on  the  narrow 
scale  of  individual  experience.  Is  it  not  after  a  man  has 
grown  old  enough  to  know  right  from  wrong,  and  for  years 
has  abused  his  freedom  to  choose  the  wrong,  adding  to  the 
inherited  fault  under  which  he  is  condemned  a  crowd  of 
illegal  acts  of  his  own — "  the  least  of  them  a  death ; "  is  it 
not  then  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  "  free  gift  which 
justifies"  is  usually  revealed  to  the  soul?  Then  when  it 
comes  to  a  mature  and  experienced  offender,  grown  peni- 
tent at  last,  how  widely  must  it  abound !  As  if  the  original 
lapse  of  the  First  Father  were  a  small  thing  to  answer  for, 
how  does  the  righteous  obedience  of  our  New  Representative 
spread  over  our  own  unnumbered  sins,  personal  trans- 
gressions as  wilful  as  Adam's,  perchance  as  flagrant,  not  less 
than  the  crowd  of  unnoticed  faults  of  custom  or  of  disposi- 
tion, till  the  whole  long  life  of  sin  has  been  flooded  and 


140    THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

penetrated  with  the  cleansing — a  free  gift  of  righteousness 
that  covers  all,  and  where  sin  abounded,  abounds  yet  more. 
Not  so,  therefore,  as  God  imputed  sin  does  He  now  impute 
obedience.  Not  so,  but  "  much  more ; "  after  a  richer, 
grander  fashion,  on  an  ampler  scale.  For  the  solitary 
transgression  which  Adam  bequeathed  to  his  children,  how 
does  our  Second  Adam  impart  to  them  that  are  His  the 
obedience  and  satisfaction  of  a  life-time;  a  royal  "gift"  of 
pure  and  stainless  righteousness,  atoning  for  every  wrong, 
and  covering  all  imperfection  with  the  beauty  of  His 
holiness,  who  is  "  fairer  than  the  sons  of  men  "  ? 

A  Third  Point  of  Superiority  remains  :  "  If  by  the 
trespass  of  the  One,  death  reigned  through  the  One,  much 
more  shall  they  that  receive  the  abundance  of  grace  and 
of  the  gift  of  righteousness  reign  in  life  through  the  One, 
even  Jesus  Christ"  (ver.  17,  E.  Y.).  In  other  words,  the 
results  to  be  expected  from  redemption  are  grander  than 
the  results  of  the  fall  were  disastrous. 

This  sounds  fabulous ;  for  the  disaster  entailed  on  man- 
kind by  the  fall  of  ^'  the  One  "  might  well  appear  too  fearful 
ever  to  be  overtopped  by  any  subsequent  advantage.  That 
disaster  Paul  does  not  attempt  to  soften.  It  amounted  to 
this,  he  says,  that "  death  reigned."  It  not  only  "  entered  " 
and  "passed  through  unto  all,"  as  ver.  12  has  told  us,  but 
it  assumed  of  right  the  lordly  place  on  earth.  It  is  man's 
king;  a  "strong  one  armed,"  who  domineers  by  lawful 
right  as  one  who  wears  a  crown.  A  triple  crown  it 
wears ;  over  body,  soul,  and  spirit.  And  the  "  one 
offence"  has  given  death  this  fearful  sway,  with  power 
to  have  and  to  hold  unto  eternity.  What  monarch  boasts 
so  wide  a  realm,  such  imperial  authority,  such  resistless 
power  ? 

Over  against  this  last  extremity  of  ill  wrought  by  the 
fall,  what  can  Jesus  bring  us  of  outweighing  or  excelling 


A  HISTORICAL  PARALLEL.  I4I 

good?  Why,  merely  to  undo  tliafc  curse  calls  for  the 
abolishing  of  death.  To  discrown  our  tyrant — no  more ; 
and  set  them  free  who  are  all  their  lifetime  subject  to  his 
bondage  ;  is  not  this  as  much  as  man's  highest  hope  dare 
look  for  ?  But  superabonnding  grace  conceives  a  higher 
triumph.  The  Deliverer  does  more  than  deliver.  He 
turns  a  rescue  into  a  conquest.  He  not  only  binds  the 
strong  one,  He  spoils  him.  The  curse  is  reversed  till  it 
becomes  a  blessing.  Having  brought  back  life,  Christ 
raises  life  to  glory.  Death  is  discrowned,  but  only  to  set 
a  crown  upon  the  head  of  the  redeemed.  Not  "death 
reigns  "  any  more,  but  we  "  reign  in  life."  For  He  who 
comes  to  save  unkings  the  king  of  terrors  to  make  His 
people  kings  unto  God.  This  is  much  more  than  ruin 
repaired  or  the  fall  undone.  It  is  not  mere  life  but 
regnant  life  which  the  Saviour  brings  in  lieu  of  death. 
Life  in  closest  union  with  His  own,  full,  rich,  and  splendid, 
at  the  summit  of  glory,  where  He  sitteth  on  His  throne — 
the  life  of  beatific  and  glorified  kings,  transcending  thought 
or  knowledge  of  ours ;  that  the  loss  we  endured  in  Adam 
may  be  overpaid  in  Christ,  and  the  gift  of  grace  may  the 
more  abound. 

Thus  at  every  point  hath  God  resolved  to  be  more  than 
a  Restorer  or  Eepairer  in  His  work  of  redemption ;  He 
will  be  a  Gainer.  He  would  not  have  a  process  so  costly 
and  arduous  end  where  it  began,  in  an  idle  circling  round 
again  to  the  old  "Paradise  regained."  It  circles,  but 
spirally,  mounting  higher.  God  is  a  gainer :  He  receives 
back  His  own  "  with  usury."  Man  is  a  gainer  :  we  lost 
an  earthly  head  to  find  a  heavenly.  Fallen  from  innocent 
probationhood  in  a  perishable  Eden  on  earth,  to  be  the 
bondsmen  of  sin  and  death,  our  Second  Adam  is  the  Lord 
from  heaven.  Descending  to  our  level  that  He  may 
espouse  our  cause  and  share  our  loss,  has  He  recovered  us 


142  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

from  our  fall  ?  It  is  only  that  He  miglit  lift  ns  higlier 
than  to  the  place  we  lost — higher,  to  His  own  assured  and 
radiant  Home  of  bliss  in  the  everlasting  security  and 
measureless  felicity  of  a  spiritual  life  hid  with  Himself  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Father. 

"  Not  as  the  trespass,"  therefore,  **  so  also  is  the  free 
gift!" 


(     143     ) 


CHAPTER  XII. 

FREE  GRACE  AND  SIN. 

**  What  shall  we  say  then?  Shall  we  continue  in  sin,  that  grace  may  abound  ? 
God  forbid.  We  who  died  to  sin,  how  shall  we  any  longer  live  therein  ?  Or 
are  ye  ignorant  that  all  we  who  were  baptized  into  Christ  Jesus  were  baptized 
into  His  death  ?  We  were  buried  therefore  with  Him  through  baptism  into 
death :  that  like  as  Christ  was  raised  from  the  dead  through  the  glory  of  the 
Father,  so  we  also  might  walk  in  newness  of  life.  For  if  we  have  become 
united  with  Him  by  the  likeness  of  His  death,  we  shall  be  also  by  the  likeness 
of  His  resurrection." — KOM.  vi.  1-5. 

TN  the  earlier  chapters  of  this  treatise,  St.  Paul  was  occu- 
-*-  pied  in  proving  and  defending  the  first  fundamental 
truth  of  his  gospel — that  the  only  way  in  which  we  can  be 
pardoned  or  acquitted  in  the  judgment  of  God  is  through 
our  trusting  exclusively,  not  to  what  we  have  ourselves 
done,  but  to  Christ  and  the  atonement  which  He  effected 
in  our  name.  The  immediate  effects  of  this  have  since 
been  traced  in  the  fifth  chapter.  All  believers  in  Jesus 
have  now  peace  with  God ;  they  are  reconciled  to  God ; 
they  enjoy  His  favour  as  a  gratuitous  gift.  Nay,  the 
more  sin  has  abounded  in  men,  or  reigned  over  them  be- 
fore, so  much  the  more  superabundant  and  triumphant  is 
that  free  favour  of  God,  which  through  the  propitiation 
of  Christ  has  made  even  such  sinners  "  righteous,"  to  the 
praise  of  the  glory  of  the  divine  grace ! 

To  many  this  has  always  appeared  to  be  very  perilous 
teaching.     It   seems  to  offer    no    security   for  practical 


144  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

virtue.  Why  (it  is  asked)  should  a  man  strive  to  act 
aright  if  his  acceptance  with  God  does  not  turn  at  all 
upon  his  own  actions  ?  Is  not  this  to  throw  overboard 
the  very  strongest  of  all  motives  for  good  living — that  is 
to  say,  the  fear  of  penalty  and  the  hope  of  reward  ?  So 
far  from  teaching  like  this  making  men  good,  it  appears 
to  promise  them  immunity  in  their  evil-doing, — if  indeed 
it  does  not  actually  put  a  premium  upon  sin.  For  if  you 
say  God's  grace  is  more  conspicuous  when  it  forgives 
many  great  sins  than  only  a  few  little  ones,  what  else 
is  that  but  to  say  that  we  may  sin  the  more  in  order  to 
make  God's  forgiving  mercy  the  more  illustrious  ? 

Of  course,  if  anything  approaching  to  this  were  a  fair 
deduction  from  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone, 
or  should  turn  out  to  be  its  legitimate  practical  effect 
upon  the  believers  of  it,  then  such  a  doctrine  would  be 
grossly  immoral.  It  would  be  pernicious  in  the  highest 
degree  and  to  every  upright  mind  simply  detestable. 
Grant  the  correctness  of  such  an  objection  to  evangelical 
teaching,  and  the  opprobrium  which  has  so  frequently 
been  cast  upon  it  would  be  richly  merited.  But  persons 
who  feel  shaken  in  their  creed  by  such  denunciations  of 
evangelical  teaching  do  well  to  reflect  that  precisely  the 
same  objection  was  taken  in  St.  Paul's  day  against  St. 
Paul's  teaching  ;  that  he  met  it  by  a  vigorous  repudiation 
of  it  as  in  no  sense  a  fair  or  real  objection ;  that  indeed 
his  answer  to  it  formed  the  second  main  branch  or  section 
of  his  theological  system,  since  in  that  answer  he  de- 
veloped the  whole  theory  of  Christian  holiness.  The  mere 
fact  that  the  unanimous  doctrine  of  both  the  Lutheran 
and  the  Reformed  Churches  on  the  subject  of  justification 
has  been  assailed  on  precisely  similar  grounds  to  those 
on  which  Paul's  doctrine  of  grace  was  assailed,  certainly 
makes  it  so  far  probable  that  these  Churches  have  rightly 


FEEE  GRACE  AND  SIN.  1 45 

understood  liis  meaning.  It  is  all  the  more  probable, 
because,  against  any  other  doctrine  but  this  evangelical 
one  of  gratuitous  justification,  no  such  objection  can  with 
any  show  of  reason  be  alleged.  At  all  events,  the  fact 
that  even  an  apostle's  way  of  putting  the  gospel  did  not 
escape  such  assaults,  ought  to  make  us  sit  rather  easy 
under  them  now-a-days.  To  say  the  least,  evangelical 
doctrine  is  not  a  whit  less  likely  to  be  either  apostolic  or 
scriptural  because  men  draw  these  evil  conclusions  from 
it.  The  charge  of  immoral  tendency,  which  glanced 
harmlessly  off  St.  Paul  and  the  Church  of  his  time,  may 
very  well  prove  equally  harmless  against  the  evangelical 
churches  of  modern  date. 

The  truth  is,  that  if  the  gospel  of  Christ — so  far  from 
encouraging  or  tolerating  sin — do  not  prove  itself  to  be 
in  practice  the  death  of  sin,  then  it  simply  fails  of  its  own 
avowed  design;  and,  what  is  more,  it  proclaims  itself  a 
failure.  Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  free  acquittal  of 
a  penitent  believing  sinner  on  the  ground  of  Christ's 
atonement  is  not  the  whole  of  the  gospel.  It  is  not  the 
end  even  of  the  gospel :  it  is  the  means  only  by  which  it 
proposes  to  attain  its  end.  Paul's  definition  of  the  gospel 
at  the  outset  was  this  (i.  16):  ^'The  gospel  of  Christ  is 
the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  [salvation  from  sin  and 
its  eSects,  that  is]  to  every  one  who  believes  it."  And 
the  very  reason  why  it  is  God's  power  to  deliver  from  sin 
was  to  Paul's  mind  just  this,  that  in  it  is  revealed  God's 
way  of  free  justification  for  sinners.  Free  justification  is 
the  organon  or  instrument  by  which  God  proposes  to  work 
on  man  for  his  liberation  from  sin.  Now,  if  that  free 
justification  turn  out  on  trial  not  to  cure  a  man  of  his  sin, 
but  to  encourage  him  in  it ;  if,  so  far  from  fetching  God's 
own  power  into  the  man  to  make  him  good,  as  it  professes 
to  do,  it  prove  utterly  weak  against  the  might  of  bad 

K 


146  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

desire  and  bad  habit,  so  tliat  the  believer  lies  still  where 
he  lay  before  in  the  pit  of  his  own  evil  life,  loving  and 
doing  what  is  selfish,  sensual,  or  malignant — why  then, 
all  you  can  say  is,  this  gospel  turns  out  to  be  a  cheat,  like 
every  other  gospel  or  recipe  for  working  deliverance  in 
the  earth  w^hich  men  have  ever  concocted  or  experi- 
mented with,  before  Christ  and  after  Him ! 

The  question,  therefore,  as  to  the  practical  influence  upon 
conduct  of  evangelical  faith  is  not  at  all  a  subordinate  or 
unimportant  one,  even  for  the  gospel  itself.  Quite  the 
contrary.  It  is  a  vital  question.  It  just  means  this :  Is 
the  gospel  a  success  or  a  failure  ?  Does  it  do  what  it 
attempts,  or  not  ?  Has  it  any  real  divine  strength  in  it, 
or  none  ?  Can  it  save,  or  can  it  not  save  ?  Only  by  its 
fruits  does  it  seek  to  be  judged.  Only  if  it  actually  does  what 
nothing  else  ever  did — save  men  who  receive  it  from  the 
love  and  dominion  of  evil — has  it  made  out  its  own  claim 
to  be  a  divine  power  in  the  world,  a  down-reaching  into 
history  and  human  experience  of  the  beneficent  spiritual 
energy  of  Almighty  God. 

Here,  then,  under  cover  of  a  reply  to  a  plausible  objec- 
tion to  the  doctrine  of  justification,  we  really  enter  upon 
the  discussion  of  the  bearing  of  gospel  faith  on  moral 
character.  The  (so-called)  "  doctrine  of  sanctification,"  or 
the  way  in  w^hich  the  gospel  operates  to  renew  man's 
fallen  nature  and  restore  it  again  to  virtue,  is  the  wide 
field  opened  up  with  the  first  verse  of  the  sixth  chapter, 
and  traversed  till  the  close  of  the  eighth.  These  three 
chapters  form  the  next  chief  section  of  this  most  theo- 
logical of  the  Epistles. 

To  the  objection,  the  plausible  but  hateful  objection: 
"  What  then  ?    Are  ive  to  ^persist  in  our  sin  just  in  order 


FREE  GRACE  AKD  SIX.  147 

that  {as  you  say)  the  ^  grace'  of  God  may  ^  ahonnd'  in  its 
forgiveness  ?  "  St.  Paul's  instant  reply  is  a  very  blunt  and 
staggering  one.  It  amounts  to  this :  Such  an  abuse  of 
free  grace  is  in  the  nature  of  things  impossible.  It  is 
practically  unthinkable  and  out  of  the  question.  For, 
says  he,  ''^persons  who  like  us  died  to  sin — hoiv  shall  ive  any 
longer  live  in  it .? "  Christians  then  are  people  who,  in  the 
mere  fact  of  becoming  Christians,  "died  to  sin;"  severed 
their  old  connection  with  it,  that  is,  or  passed  through  an 
experience  which  put  a  virtual  end  to  their  sinful  life. 
This  is  what  faith  in  Christ  has  done  for  everybody  who 
has  ever  really  believed  in  Him.  After  an  experience  like 
that,  it  is  by  the  laws  of  human  nature  impossible — if  it 
were  possible,  it  would  be  morally  shameful — for  the  man 
any  longer  to  live  wilfully  in  his  old  sins. 

As  an  appeal  to  the  instincts  of  the  Christian  life,  this 
reply  is  quite  sufiicient.  The  objection,  indeed,  is  one 
which  never  could  occur  to  the  regenerate  or  believing 
mind.  It  never  could  spring  up  inside  the  living  Church  ; 
for  it  never  could  seem  a  possible  thing  to  any  one  who 
had  passed  through  the  process  of  Christian  conversion 
and  been  united  to  Christ  by  faith,  that  he  was  as  free  as 
ever,  or  freer  than  be  lore,  to  sin  !  Such  a  difficulty  is  a 
purely  intellectual  one,  arising  in  the  minds  of  men  who 
try  to  comprehend  the  gospel  from  the  outside,  without 
having  first  experienced  it.  To  any  real  child  of  God,  who 
will  let  his  heart  speak,  it  must  be  for  ever  certain  that 
the  change  which  his  faith  has  wrought  in  him  has  given 
sin  its  death-blow,  and  made  the  wilful,  conscious  choice 
of  sin  over  holiness  a  simple  impossibility  to  him  hence- 
forth. But,  then,  when  once  an  intellectual  difficulty  of 
this  description  has  been  started  by  a  non-christian  ob- 
jector, it  is  no  longer  enough  to  appeal  against  it  to  the 
holy  instincts  of  the  renewed  nature.     For  the  Christian 


148  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

has  a  head  as  well  as  a  heart,  and  craves  to  find,  for  an 
intellectual  objection,  an  intellectual  answer.  The  objec- 
tion, it  is  true,  is  not  of  his  raising ;  yet,  once  raised,  it 
cannot  receive  its  full  quietus  till  the  Christian's  under- 
standing be  so  enlightened  respecting  the  spiritual  change 
which  he  has  undergone,  as  to  see  how  it  must  be  for  ever 
inconsistent  with  such  an  abuse  of  grace.  That  my  Chris- 
tian faith  is  inconsistent  with  persisting  in  sin,  I  feel. 
How  it  comes  to  be  thus  inconsistent  with  it,  I  want  also 
to  see  for  myself,  if  I  can. 

It  is  with  this  design,  as  I  take  it,  that  St.  Paul  proceeds. 
Or,  he  adds,  if  you  do  not  see  at  once  how  this  settles  the 
objection,  are  you  ignorant  of  what  every  Christian  is  sup- 
2')osed  to  know — how  as  many  of  us  as  were  baptized  into 
Christ  Jesus  at  all,  ivere  baptized  into  the  death  of  Him  ? 
Well,  then,  it  follows  that  lue  were  buried  along  icith  Him 
like  dead  men,  by  means  of  that  baptism  of  ours  into  His 
death,  for  the  express  purpose,  not  that  we  should  remain 
dead  any  more  than  He  did,  but  that,  just  as  He  was  raised 
out  from  among  the  dead  by  the  glorious  power  of  His  Father, 
so  ive  also  should  walk  thenceforth  in  a  new  life. 

The  change  (call  it  conversion  or  regeneration,  or  what 
you  will)  which  is  for  every  man  the  true  starting-point 
of  a  conscious  Christian  life,  consists,  on  the  one  side,  in 
his  turning  penitently  from  his  past  sins,  and  on  the  other 
in  his  accepting  the  gratuitous  favour  of  God  for  forgive- 
ness through  the  blood  of  Jesus.  In  the  case  of  a  convert 
in  the  primitive  Church,  that  change  was  always  publicly 
attested,  and  its  inward  character  symbolized,  by  the 
initiatory  rite  of  baptism.  For  a  man  like  Paul,  who  had 
marked  the  solemn  and  memorable  revolution  in  his 
own  life  which  happened  at  Damascus  by  submitting  to 
the  badge  of  the  Nazarene  faith;  or  for  men  like  the 
Romans  he  was  writing  to,  who,  when  they  turned  from 


FREE  GRACE  AND  SIN.  1 49 

tlie  gods  of  the  Capitol  and  tbe  license  of  a  city  whose 
dens  sheltered  the  profligacy  of  the  world,  had  equally 
marked  their  entrance  upon  a  purer  life  by  the  laver  of 
cleansing  and  second  birth :— for  them,  I  say,  nothing 
could  seem  more  natural  than  to  look  back  upon  their 
baptismal  act  whenever  any  question  arose  as  to  what 
their  conversion  to  Christ  really  meant.  The  process  of 
their  conversion  to  Christ  might  sometimes  have  been  a 
very  gradual  one.  It  had  always  been  secret  and  spiritual. 
It  had  come  about  in  various  ways.  It  had  involved 
changes,  some  of  which  were  conspicuous  still  in  their 
daily  experience,  while  others  cut  deep  into  the  mysterious 
relations  of  God  with  the  human  spirit.  But  whatever 
that  immense  moral  and  religious  change  implied,  it  had 
found  in  the  case  of  each  one  of  them  the  same  public 
pregnant  expression,  and  been  solemnly  ratified  by  the 
same  divine  rite.  In  the  waters  of  baptism  the  con- 
version of  one  and  all  had  been  both  ''signified  and 
sealed." 

What  then  was  the  essential  idea  of  that  rite  as  respects 
their  relation  to  sin  ?  What  light  did  it  cast  upon  the 
question.  Can  a  Christian  continue  in  sin?  Its  most 
general  meaning  was  this,  that  it  put  baptized  believers 
into  the  closest  possible  relationship  with  Christ  Jesus. 
It  brought  them  into  communion  or  participation  with 
Christ.  For  it  was  a  being  "  baj^tized  into  Him  "  (verse 
3).  It  was  a  "putting  on  of  Him"  (Gal.  iii.  27).  It 
expressed  their  acceptance  of  Him,  as  in  the  fullest  sense 
their  new  and  second  Adam,*  their  spiritual  Head  and 
Chief  and  Surety,  of  whose  "body"  they  were  thence- 
forward to  be  "  members,"  whose  fortunes  they  were  thence- 
forward to  share.  Baptism  is  the  seal  of  faith  in  Christ ; 
so  that  if  this  be  what   baptism  symbolically  expresses, 

Cf.  V.  12  fif.  in  its  bearing  on  this  new  paragraph. 


150    THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDIXG  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

ihen  this  is  wliat  faith  in  Christ  actually  accomplishes. 
Yes ;  but  if  baptism  seal  our  incorporation  into  the  Repre- 
sentative Man  from  heaven,  so  that  henceforth  we  are 
embraced  in  His  actions,  live  or  die  as  He  lives  or  dies ; 
who  does  not  know  that  the  special  act  of  Jesus  Christ 
with  which  of  all  others  we  are  brought  most  prominently 
into  participation,  is  nothing  else  than  His  death  and 
burial  ?  What  is  that  central  thing  about  Jesus  Christ 
on  which  my  faith  as  a  penitent  sinner  has  to  fasten  itself 
if  I  would  have  redemption  and  forgiveness?  Why,  His 
expiatory  death  upon  the  cross  for  sin.  To  me,  a  guilty 
sinner,  God's  Incarnate  Son  is  before  all  other  things  'Hhe 
Lamb  who  beareth  the  sin  of  the  world."  Am  I  to  be 
justified  through  Him  at  all  ?  Then  it  is  "  through  faith  in 
His  hloocV  (iii.  25).  Have  I,  an  enemy,  been  "  reconciled 
to  God "  by  His  Son  at  all  ?  I  was  reconciled  "  by  the 
death  of  His  Son"  (v.  10).  To  that  death  upon  the  cross 
of  expiation  which  was  attested  by  His  three  days'  burial 
out  of  the  sight  of  living  men  within  Joseph's  tomb — to 
that  the  gospel  directs  the  sinner's  eye,  and  on  that  builds 
his  trust  for  pardon  and  peace  with  God.  If  I  am  united 
by  my  faith  to  the  person  of  the  Incarnate  Son  at  all,  so 
as  to  share  in  His  work  of  righteous  obedience  and  atone- 
ment, then  it  is  before  everything  else  to  the  dyiug  Christ 
— the  sin-expiating  Victim — that  my  faith  unites  me. 
When  I  intrust  myself  and  my  sins  to  Jesus  and  see  in 
Him  these  sins  of  mine  taken  away,  it  is  on  His  cross  that 
I  recognize  myself  crucified  in  effect,  my  penalty  borne, 
my  guilt  cancelled,  my  peace  secured,  and  my  pardon 
won!  "God  forbid  that  I  should  glory,  save  in  the 
cross  !  "  And  the  great  rite  which  certified  the  world  and 
me  that  I  am  Christ's  was  before  all  else  a  baptism  into 
the  death  of  Him  who  died  for  me ! 

All  this  St.  Paul  treats  as  a  Christian  commonplace 


FREE  GRACE  AND  SIN.  1  5  I 

which  every  Christian  knows.  Its  bearing  on  our  con- 
tinuing in  sin  is  sufficiently  obvious.  Conversion  to  God 
through  faith  in  the  propitiation  of  Christ  is  seen  to  be 
essentially  a  moral  change,  a  dying  to  sin.  If  when  we 
first  believed  we  identified  ourselves  with  Christ's  sacri- 
fice on  the  cross,  accepting  His  death /or  sin  and  to  sin 
as  virtually  our  own,  so  that  (as  Paul  puts  it  here)  we 
grew  into  a  kind  of  unity  with  Christ,*  coalesced  as  it 
were,  and  became  spiritually  one  with  the  Divine  Man, 
who  took  our  place,  bore  our  sin,  and  was  made  a  curse 
for  us — then  to  all  intents  and  purposes  that  was  our 
death  to  sin.  The  nerve  of  the  old  separate,  selfish,  sin- 
ful life  of  each  man  was  cut  when  the  man  abandoned  (so 
to  speak)  his  independent  moral  standing  before  God, 
merged  himself  in  his  new  Kepresentative,  and  gave  up 
his  personal  sins  to  be  judged,  condemned,  and  expiated 
in  his  Atoner's  cross.  Realizing  Christ  to  be  simply  his 
substitute  through  all  that  dying  experience  of  His,  the 
believer  elects  to  be  thus  vicariously  sentenced,  crucified, 
and  slain,  that  he  may  cease  from  the  sin  which  he  has 
learned  to  hate  and  dread,  and  be  restored  to  the  favour 
of  God,  which  more  than  life  he  has  learned  to  seek. 

How  can  a  man  who  has  gone  through  an  experience 
like  that  continue  in  sin  ?  One  who  has  come  to  see 
in  the  dying  Son  of  God  his  own  evil  and  guilty  self  judged 
and  doomed,  has  entered  into  Christ's  passion  for  sin  as 
though  it  had  been  his  own  (as  indeed  in  a  sense  it  was), 
has  felt  the  nails  that  tore  Christ's  palms  enter  his  own 
soul  to  lacerate  him  with  shame  and  regret,  has  willingly 
taken  such  a  death  to  be  the  due  reward  of  his  own  deeds, 
and  so  has  lain  down  with  His  dead  Victim  and  Substitute  in 
the  grave  of  the  condemned — how  can  such  a  man,  after 
that,  persist  in  his  sins  ?     For  him  the  old  bad  past  is  a 

*  aii/ji.<pvTot,  ver.  5. 


I  5  2    THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

thing  dead  and  buried.  The  old  sins  are  expiated  and 
abolished.  The  motives,  pleasures,  or  gains  of  the  ante- 
cedent ungodly  life  have  had  their  fascination  and  their 
vitality  destroyed  for  him.  In  his  case,  as  in  Christ's  own 
case,  such  an  experience  has  made  an  epoch.  His  rupture 
with  the  past  is  complete.  The  whole  complexion  of  the 
future  is  changed.  Old  things  are  passed  away,  every- 
thing has  become  new.  Such  a  man  can  no  more  go 
back  to  be  what  he  was  before,  feel  as  he  felt,  or  act  as 
he  used  to  act,  than  Jesus  Christ  could  rise  out  of  His  grave 
to  be  once  more  the  Victim  for  unexpiated  guilt  and  the 
Sin-bearer  for  a  guilty  race. 

When  a  sin-stricken  and  convicted  man  thus  gives  him- 
self up  to  Christ,  in  order  that  by  His  death  he  may  get  rid 
of  his  sins  to  stand  free  and  acquitted  from  them,  it  is  not 
meant  that  he  is  to  have  thenceforth  no  moral  life  at  all. 
Quite  the  reverse.  God  in  Christ  cancels  the  guilty  past 
and  slays  the  principle  of  sin  within  the  heart,  on  very 
purpose  that  the  man,  set  free  from  sin  and  death,  may 
live  henceforth  an  altered  and  a  better  life.  In  other 
words  (to  carry  on  the  parallel  with  Christ),  the  Christian 
dies  to  his  old  sin  so  that  he  may  begin  to  live  to  holiness 
and  God.  This  is  the  express  design  which  God  had  when 
He  put  our  sins  to  death  in  His  dear  Son's  cross.  His 
object  was  to  start  us  afresh  upon  a  new  career  of  virtue: 
to  make  it  now  (what  it  was  not  before)  a  possible  thing 
for  us  to  keep  His  holy  and  spiritual  law.  And  He  has 
made  provision  for  our  doing  that,  through  the  same 
inward  tie  which  binds  our  heart  to  the  Son  of  God. 
The  nexus  formed  in  the  act  of  believing  is  not  good  for 
legal  effects  solely,  but  for  vital  issues  as  well.  Faith  in 
Christ  makes  us  morally  incorporate  with  Him  in  spirit, 
one  with  His  spirit,  as  well  as  legally  embraced  under  Him 
as  our  Representative.     Christ  is  our  Head  in  this  sense 


FREE  GRACE  AND  SIN.  I  53 

that  He  represents  us  before  the  law,  so  that  in  His  death 
all  who  are  His  died  to  sin.  Christ  is  no  less  our  Head 
to  quicken  us  as  His  members,  and  in  His  living  again 
we  all  live  anew.  The  will  and  the  power  to  lead  a  new 
moral  life  are  therefore  guaranteed  to  us  by  our  faith  ;  for 
the  whole  energy  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  as  it  is  possessed 
by  Jesus  Christ,  is  poured  into  the  believing  heart  to  carry 
it  forward  along  a  path  of  affectionate  obedience  to  God — 
such  obedience  as  befits  a  reconciled  son  of  the  Heavenly 
Father. 

Thus  far  I  have  attempted  little  more  than  to  paraphrase 
the  peculiar  and  difficult  language  by  which  St.  Paul,  here 
as  elsewhere,  labours  to  express  the  connection  of  each 
believer  to  Christ.  One  thing  is  sufficiently  manifest: 
Christian  faith  is  very  far  from  a  superficial,  or  inopera- 
tive, or  merely  intellectual  act,  such  as  a  man  can  do 
without  his  moral  character  being  seriously  affected  by  it. 
It  is  very  much  the  opposite  of  that.  It  is  connected 
with  the  deep  roots  of  our  moral  and  religious  nature.  It 
changes  the  main  current  of  our  ethical  life.  It  brings 
about  a  radical  revolution  at  the  very  springs  of  conduct. 
It  wrenches  us  away  by  a  fatal  wrench  from  our  old 
adhesions.  It  launches  us  on  a  totally  fresh  stream  of 
vital  influences.  It  is  like  a  death  and  a  birth  in  one : 
like  a  burial  and  a  resurrection. 

It  becomes  at  this  point  an  extremely  interesting 
inquiry :  Can  we  realize  for  ourselves,  either  out  of  our 
own  or  other  people's  experience,  this  extraordinary  change 
which  St.  Paul  appears  to  think  his  Eoman  correspondents 
will  at  once  recognize  as  their  own  ?  Can  we  do  anything 
to  explain  how  it  comes  about  ?  or  how  it  stands  related  to 
the  death  and  life  of  Jesus  Christ  ?  If  we  can,  will  this 
help  us  to  understand  how  faith  in  Christ  should  bring 
about  such  astonishing  results  ?     Questions  like  these  we 


I  54  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

shall  try  to  consider  in  another  chapter.     For  the  present 
they  must  stand  over. 

There  is,  however,  another  question  started  by  this  sub- 
ject which  never  can  afford  to  stand  over  with  any  of  us. 
Those  who  have  been  baptized  into  Christ  and  say  they 
trust  in  His  death  as  the  ground  of  their  peace  with  God, 
are  bound  to  satisfy  themselves  that  their  faith  is  of  a  sort 
to  kill  sin.  It  is  true,  we  have  had  the  benefit  of  Christian 
training,  and  may  not  remember  any  such  period  of  change 
as  stood  out  sharp  in  the  recollection  of  Roman  Christians. 
But  the  world  at  large  is  not  yet  Christian,  and  therefore 
the  life  we  lead,  if  we  are  Christ's,  ought  to  exhibit,  if  not 
on  the  surface,  at  least  in  its  secret  aims  and  spirit,  a  con- 
trast to  what  prevails  in  society,  somewhat  like  the  con- 
trast which  the  Eoman  Christians  exhibited  to  their  pagan 
countrymen.  Above  all,  if  our  faith  in  Christ  is  gospel 
faith,  it  is  certain  that,  so  far  from  yielding  to  that 
perilous  temptation  which  in  theory  the  enemies  of  free 
grace  ascribe  to  our  evangelical  creed  (the  temptation  to 
sin  because  pardon  is  free),  we  must  be  abhorring  any 
dalliance  with  acknowledged  sin,  contesting  the  sway  even 
of  habitual  faults,  aspiring  after  a  more  irreproachable 
virtue  than  satisfies  society,  pitching  our  standard  as  high 
as  Christ's  own  example,  and  labouring  to  keep  ourselves 
in  every  part  pure  for  the  service  of  Him  who  redeemed 
us  with  His  most  precious  blood,  that  we  might  be  "  holy 
and  blameless  before  Him  in  love  ! " 


(     155    ) 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

ASSIMILATION  THROUGH  FAITH. 

"  For  if  we  have  become  united  with  Him  by  the  likeness  of  His  death,  we 
shall  be  also'by  the  likeness  of  His  resurrection  ;  knowing  this,  that  our  old 
man  was  crucified  with  Him,  that  the  body  of  sin  might  be  done  away,  that 
so  we  should  no  longer  be  in  bondage  to  sin." — ROM.  vi.  5,  6. 

rPHE  moral  effect  of  a  Christian's  faith  in  the  atonement 
-'-  of  Jesus  Christ  is  described  in  our  Authorised  Version 
of  this  passage  by  a  peculiar  expression  : — "  We  have  been 
planted  together  in  the  likeness  of  His  death."  I  suspect 
there  are  few  readers  who  attach  to  that  phrase  any  very 
definite  or  intelligible  sense.  This  precise  expression 
occurs  nowhere  else  in  Scripture,  though  the  thought  itself 
occurs  often.  It  is  an  effort  to  convey  by  a  curious  and 
vigorous  figure  the  close  spiritual  assimilation  which  faith 
produces  between  the  Christian  and  the  Christ  whom  he 
believes  in.  In  fact,  the  central  thought  in  these  words 
is  very  much  what  we  express  in  modern  English  by 
"  assimilation."  Hence  the  revisers  have  substituted  for 
it  the  phrase,  "  We  have  become  united  with  Him."  What 
St.  Paul  says  is  literally  this,  that  believers  have  "  groicn 
together  into  one "  with  Christ,  so  as  to  become  of  like 
nature  with  Him  in  the  matter  of  His  death.  I  conceive 
the  matter  so :  We  were  once  quite  apart  and  separate 
from  the  Divine  Man  who  died  for  the  world's  sin ;  and 
when  we  were  so,  there  was  nothing  about  us  which 
offered  the  least  analogy  to  His  death.    But  we  have  come 


156    THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

now  to  be  as  it  were  incorporate  witli  Him,  our  nature 
clinging  to  and  growing  into  His,  so  as  to  take  on  a  close 
moral  resemblance,  till  you  may  say  that  the  death  of  Him 
has  been  in  some  spiritual  fashion  copied  or  reproduced 
upon  ourselves.  When  a  penitent  sinner  puts  saving  faith 
in  that  great  death  of  the  Son  of  God  by  which  his  sins 
were  atoned  for,  he  becomes  so  closely  one  with  Him  that 
he  may  be  said  in  a  sense  to  die  too.  A  change  passes 
upon  his  own  moral  and  religious  nature  which  finds  its 
nearest  parallel  in  the  death  of  Christ  Himself. 

But  how  can  any  inward  change  passing  in  the  mind  of 
a  man  to-day  be  said  to  bear  a  likeness  to  that  which 
happened  when  once  for  all  Christ  bare  our  sin  in  His 
own  body  on  the  tree?  Easily  enough.  Consider  the 
moral  significance  of  Christ's  death  for  sin.  Was  it  not, 
to  begin  with,  the  first  full  recognition  ever  made  on  this 
earth  of  the  turpitude  and  guilt  of  human  sin,  and  of  the 
absolute  integrity  of  the  law  which  judged  and  slew  the 
sinner  ?  What  nothing  else  had  been  able  to  do,  God  did 
by  sending  His  own  Son  in  flesh — He  condemned  sin  in 
the  flesh.  The  Son,  being  of  one  mind  with  the  Father, 
owned  that  human  sin  was  surpassingly  hateful,  and  the 
divine  law  perfectly  holy,  and  its  sentence  of  death  utterly 
just.  All  that  He  practically  owned  when  He  bowed  His 
head  to  the  Father's  decree  and  died,  the  Eighteous  for 
the  unrighteous.  Xow,  whenever  I  do  with  my  whole 
heart  accept  of  that  sacrificial  death  of  Jesus  as  reconciling 
me  to  God  by  satisfying  His  law  on  my  behalf,  do  I  not 
take  precisely  the  same  view  of  my  own  guilt  which  Christ 
took  ?  Do  I  not  enter  into  sympathy  with  God's  point  of 
view,  just  as  His  own  Son  did — owning  my  sin  to  be 
inexcusable  and  abominable  in  His  eyes,  and  this  to  be 
my  desert,  death  and  banishment  from  the  Holy  One  ? 
Can  we  call  such  an  experience  as  this  anything  else  but 


ASSIMILATION  THROUGH  FAITH.  157 

growing  spiritually  incorporate  with  the  likeness  of  Christ's 
death  ?  The  man  who  has  got  such  a  view  of  the  crimi- 
nality of  his  own  sin  that  he  is  prepared  to  accept  the 
sentence  of  the  divine  law,  and  submit  to  it  as  Jesus 
submitted,  does  in  a  very  real  sense  die  in  his  heart  to  sin. 
The  fascination  of  sin — its  spell  over  his  will — is  clearly 
broken.  He  has  learned  to  loathe  what  he  liked  before. 
He  has  cut  himself  off  from  all  his  bad  past,  and  buried 
his  former  life,  as  it  were,  in  the  grave  where  his  Saviour 
lay. 

Let  us  stand  in  thought  beside  the  cold  pale  corpse  of 
Him  Who  died  for  us,  as  it  lay  once  in  the  arms  of  them 
that  loved  Him  best,  whose  kisses,  whose  hot  tears  awoke 
no  tender  answer  as  they  had  been  wont  to  do.  This 
lovely  Victim  is  the  Lord  from  heaven,  the  only  begotten 
Son  by  whom  the  worlds  were  framed.  He  has  died  for 
our  sins ;  He  has  died  in  our  room.  Can  we  let  that 
thought  into  our  heart,  and  embrace  in  it  the  saving  mercy 
of  God,  without  feeling  sinful  desire  wither  down  within 
us  ?  Can  we  accept  this  for  God's  true  verdict  on  our  evil 
life,  His  sad  righteous  answer  to  our  disobedience,  and  not 
wish  to  be  disobedient  and  evil  no  more  ?  "Will  a  man's 
love  for  selfish  indulgence  survive  if  he  hold  this  dead 
Christ  within  his  arms  ?  Can  it  come  forth  again  alive 
after  he  has  lain  down  in  the  grave  with  Him  ?  Seek  to 
know  the  fellowship  of  His  sufferings ;  become  conformed 
to  His  death;  then  the  old  evil,  unlovely,  ungodly  self 
must  die  within  the  bosom,  killed  by  the  cross  which  killed 
our  Saviour — crucified  with  Christ ! 

If  faith  in  the  cross  of  Christ  prove  thus  effectual  to  cut 
the  nerve  of  a  sinful  life,  will  faith  in  the  living  Christ  do 
less  to  create  a  better  life  in  us  ?  If  (as  St.  Paul  says)  we 
have  become  inwardly  "grown  together  with  Christ,"  so 
that  we  have  experienced  a  moral  death  to  sin  analogous 


158    THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

to  His  own,  surely  we  sHall  also  "  grow  together  with  Him 
in  the  likeness  of  His  resurrection."  The  very  object  for 
which  Christ  died  once  and  our  old  sinful  self  has  now 
received  its  mortal  wound  by  His  Cross,  is  this — that  the 
believer,  set  free  from  the  fascination  of  sin,  should  be 
point  by  point  assimilated  or  conformed  to  the  moral  like- 
ness of  the  perfected  Jesus  the  risen  Son  of  God.  This 
side  also  of  our  spiritual  renewal,  this  reconstruction  of 
character  after  the  divine  image,  is  efiected  (precisely  as 
our  death  to  sin  was  effected)  by  faith  in  Jesus  Christ. 

It  may  appear  to  some  as  though  this  thing  which  we 
call  faith  were  much  too  feeble  or  too  uncertain  an  instru- 
ment to  work  so  great  a  moral  reformation.  What !  may 
one  say,  shall  a  man  who  in  the  very  marrow  of  his  bones 
loves  to  do  wrong,  who  thirsts  after  sinful  indulgence  like 
a  passion,  whose  self-will  is  as  the  breath  of  his  nostrils 
to  him,  reverse  his  tastes,  break  his  habits,  deny  himself 
delight,  and  change  his  life  into  the  likeness  of  One  so 
unlike  him  as  Jesus  Christ,  merely  because  you  tell  us  he 
puts  faith  in  Christ  to  save  him  ?  What  is  there  in  this 
'^  faith  "  to  work  so  astounding  a  revolution  ? 

The  answer  to  that,  in  part  at  least,  is  this  :  that  among 
the  elements  of  human  character  we  have  really  no  deeper 
or  more  powerful  agent  for  working  any  such  change  than 
this  same  faith,  if  we  understand  it  fairly.  The  word 
covers  the  most  entire  devotion  of  heart  and  will  which  a 
man  can  repose  in  any  person  whom  he  justly  regards  as 
wiser,  nobler,  stronger,  and  more  trustworthy  than  him- 
self. It  means,  if  you  will,  what  among  men  is  called 
hero-worship ;  and  there  is  no  force  known  to  the  student 
of  human  nature  or  of  history  which  has  proved  itself 
capable  of  altering  the  lives  of  men  so  profoundly  as  this. 
It  combines  the  strongest  motives  and  the  most  sustaining 
elements  in  character ;  such  as  confidence,  loyalty,  affec- 


ASSIMILATION  THROUGH  FAITH.  I  59 

tion,  reverence,  authority,  and  moral  attractiveness.  You 
constantly  find  that  large  bodies  of  men,  parties  in  the 
State,  armies  in  the  field,  schools  of  opinion,  whole  nations 
even  at  critical  moments,  are  swayed  simply  by  the  tran- 
scendent influence  of  one  outstanding  trusted  leader. 
Still  more  absorbing  is  the  influence  which  an  individual 
may  acquire  over  one  other  soul  that  entirely  believes  in 
him.  Take  a  single  element,  not  at  all  the  noblest,  in  this 
complex  relationship  which  we  term  "  faith."  Take  the 
mere  persuasion  of  one  man  that  another  is  able  and  will- 
ing to  aid  him  in  his  enterprises.  Let  it  be  a  fixed  idea, 
say,  with  a  poor  and  rather  resourceless  individual  that 
some  influential  friend  will  back  him  up  in  his  business, 
and  that  in  such  backing  lies  his  best  chance  of  success. 
What  is  there  such  a  dependant  will  not  do  at  the  instance 
of  his  patron  ?  What  change  will  he  not  make  in  his 
plans  rather  than  forfeit  substantial  assistance  from  that 
quarter  on  which  all  his  hopes  are  built  ?  This  is  faith  of 
a  sort ;  surely  it  works  powerfully.  Add  to  such  a  selfish 
expectation  of  help  the  far  deeper  bond  of  personal  rever- 
ence or  of  proud  admiring  love.  Let  the  relation  of  the 
weaker  to  the  stronger  become  more  endearing  and  binding, 
like  that  of  some  tried  and  faithful  lieutenant  to  the 
gallant  leader  whom  he  has  learnt  to  follow  with  self-for- 
gettiug  devotion  through  battle  and  storm ;  or  like  that 
of  a  maiden  to  the  strong,  wise,  capable  lover  whom  she 
both  believes  in  and  doats  upon.  Can  bounds  be  set  to 
the  power  of  faith  like  theirs  ?  Is  there  any  limit  to  the 
influence  it  may  wield  over  the  course  of  the  soldier's  or 
the  girl's  life  ?  Let  the  object  of  such  devotion  be  really 
noble  and  wise :  who  shall  say  how  far  baseness  may  be 
burnt  out  of  the  heart  that  cleaves  through  good  and  evil 
to  the  idol  it  has  chosen  for  itself?  Let  that  idol  be  itself 
erring  or  misguided:  who  will  wonder  if  the  soul  that 


1 60    THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

worships  it  be  dragged  down  the  same  devious  and  un- 
happy path  to  share  the  same  fall !  If  to  all  this  implicit 
confidence  and  hero-worshipping  loyalty  of  afiection  you 
could  add  in  a  rare  instance  some  overwhelming  obligation 
of  a  strictly  moral  kind,  like  a  bond  of  gratitude  deep  as 
life  for  a  benefit  never  to  be  forgotten,  or  a  claim  of 
supreme  authority  no  less  sacred  than  a  father's,  more 
subduing  than  a  king's — who  does  not  see  that  in  such  a 
faith  as  that,  blending  every  force  which  can  enable  one 
greater  person  to  rule  or  mould  an  inferior,  you  would 
have,  not  a  puny  instrument  for  toning  and  renovating 
character,  but,  on  the  contrary,  the  very  mightiest  of  all 
forces  within  human  experience  ? 

This  is  our  faith  in  Christ — tliis^  but  beyond  analogy 
greater  and  njore  masterful,  because  such  parallels  as  these 
are  infinitely  too  weak  to  express  it.  The  Christian  trusts 
in  Jesus  for  help  and  success  in  life,  in  the  very  highest 
sense,  with  a  view  to  the  attainment  of  every  righteous 
end  he  seeks  for,  here  or  hereafter.  But  not  as  a  man 
trusts  in  his  fellow's  support;  for  our  Saviour  is  the 
mighty  God  who  worketh  all  things  after  the  counsel  of 
His  own  will.  The  Christian  is  tied  to  Jesus  with  a  heart 
devotion  based  on  reverence  and  warming  into  love ;  but 
not  as  women  cliug  to  their  lovers,  or  partisans  to  their 
hero  chieftain;  for  our  Saviour  commands  a  reverence 
which  is  worship,  and  wins  an  affection  which  is  supreme. 
The  Christian  owes  to  Jesus  obedience  for  the  service  He 
has  rendered,  and  for  the  right  He  possesses  to  command ; 
but  not  under  such  limitations  as  always  environ  human 
authorities,  even  the  highest,  since  our  Saviour  is  Lord  of 
the  conscience  as  well  as  of  the  heart,  and  His  moral 
mastery  is  absolute,  as  His  judgment  shall  be  final.  Let 
faith  in  Christ  then  mean  (as  it  does  mean)  the  practical 
recognition  of  Him  as  Supreme  in  all  these  relationships 


ASSIMILATION  THROUGH  FAITH.  l6l 

put  together,  and  the  fastening  upon  His  single  person  of 
all  those  mighty  affections  which  bind  one  soul  to  another 
— does  it  seem  any  longer  a  thing  futile  or  unreasonable 
to  say,  that  through  such  faith  as  that  a  man  may  come 
to  grow  together  into  one  with  the  Divine  Object  of  his  de- 
votion, until  the  man's  life  is  penetrated  with  Christ's  spirit 
and  conformed  in  everything  to  His  matchless  likeness? 

I  hope  these  earthly  parallels  to  which  I  have  ventured 
to  allude  may  prove  to  be  of  some  use.  They  serve  at 
least  to  show  that  what  we  term  "  faith  "  is  by  no  means  a 
shallow  assent  to  the  articles  of  a  creed,  or  a  mental  con- 
viction that  certain  historical  and  theological  propositions 
are  true,  but  is  strictly  a  personal  bond  between  the  soul 
and  Jesus,  which  must  be  strong  and  rule  our  life  if  any 
tie  can  be  strong  enough  to  rule  ns.  They  show  that 
when  God  says  it  is  by  faith  a  sinner  is  to  be  practically 
saved,  made  holy,  that  is  to  say,  as  well  as  forgiven,  He 
does  not  choose  for  so  arduous  a  work  the  weakest,  but 
the  very  strongest  and  most  fit  faculty  in  human  nature. 
Still,  when  I  reflect  how  unlike  is  the  faith  which  a 
Christian  puts  in  Christ  to  any  faith  which  we  dare  repose 
in  one  another,  I  feel  as  if  the  specialities  of  this  case  made 
it,  I  do  not  say  irreverent,  but  idle,  to  bring  it  into  such 
parallel  with  earthly  instances.  The  tie  which  links  a 
believer  to  his  Saviour  may  present  points  of  comparison 
with  these  lower  attachments  of  the  flesh,  but  it  surely 
offers  points  of  contrast  quite  as  striking.  Men  do  get 
assimilated  no  doubt  to  the  objects  of  their  earthly  devo- 
tion; they  do  grow  into  their  likeness.  Still  no  union 
wrought  by  any  such  faith  on  earth  can  adequately  repre- 
sent the  unique  life-junction  which,  through  a  special  act 
of  God's  Holy  Spirit,  makes  these  twain  one — the  living 
Head  of  God's  new  family  and  each  lowly,  trusting  sinner 
who  cleaves  to  Jesus. 

L 


I  62  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

For  one  tiling,  the  union  of  a  believing  soul  to  Jesus, 
although  realized  no  doubt  in  this  act  of  conscious  faith, 
nevertheless  has  its  roots  in  a  certain  mysterious  oneness 
which  God's  gracious  will  has  established,  behind  our  ken, 
between  the  heirs  of  salvation  and  their  new  representative 
and  Second  Adam,  the  Lord  from  heaven. 

For  another  thing,  the  relationship  into  which  he  enters 
with  Jesus  who  believes  in  Him,  involves  not  a  portion 
only  of  the  man's  experience,  not  some  transient  or 
secular  or  subordinate  interest,  but  it  involves  the  be- 
liever's very  self — his  true  and  deepest  being.  It  is  the 
old  man  which  is  crucified  with  Christ,  that  moral  per- 
sonality which  has  hitherto  been  the  very  centre  and 
source  of  all  my  words  and  actions.  That  I  now  adjudge 
to  have  been  an  immoral  ungodly  self;  that  therefore  I 
now  abandon  to  be  doomed  and  slain  vicariously  but 
effectually  in  my  true  Head  upon  the  cross.  That,  with 
all  its  perverted  appetencies,  its  false  independence,  its 
repugnance  to  God's  will,  its  inborn  corruption,  I  abjure 
and  renounce.  I  am  willing  to  have  it  slain,  in  order  that 
the  moral  life  which  I  am  henceforth  to  lead  may  be  the 
life  of  Christ  dwelling  in  me  and  working  through  me. 
So  that  the  renunciation  involved  in  this  religious  act  of 
faith  is  vastly  more  thoroughgoing  or  radical  than  any 
other  which  men  ever  make.  It  binds  the  believer  to  the 
object  of  his  faith  with  a  more  central  bond  than  any  other. 
His  very  self  hangs  thenceforward  on  Christ's  self.  He 
owns  himself  powerless  for  any  moral  good  apart  from  the 
Divine  Source  of  power  to  which  he  has  attached  himself. 
His  spiritual  being  is  new  made ;  for  it  is  informed  by 
another  Spirit  as  its  inspiring  and  ruling  influence,  even 
by  the  Holy  Spirit  whom  Jesus  gives. 

Such  a  change  as  this,  being  not  a  change  merely  in  a 
man's  conduct,   or  in  the  mode  in  which  his  character 


ASSIMILATION  THKOUGH  FAITH.  1 6  il 

\j 

manifests  itself,  but  one  deep  enough  to  reverse  the  springs 
of  character  and  form  anew  the  spiritual  attachments  of 
the  person  himself,  is  reasonably  enough  ascribed  to  a 
special  divine  agency.  It  is  effected,  indeed,  by  faith  :  that 
is,  so  far  as  our  consciousness  of  it  goes.  It  is  only  by  our 
putting  faith  in  Him  that  we  know  ourselves  to  be  really 
attached  to  our  new  Head  and  Centre.  But  such  faith, 
and  such  attachment,  come  of  the  operation  of  God.  When 
the  old  man  dies  and  a  new  man  lives  in  a  human  being 
there  is  an  evident  re-birth  ;  and  for  that  we  must  postu° 
late  an  immediate  operation  of  the  Divine  Giver  of  life. 

These  then  are  peculiarities  about  this  unique  example 
of  faith — the  faith  that  saves.  And  these  peculiarities  lift 
such  faith,  in  respect  of  its  transforming,  ennobling  power, 
f'dv  above  comparison  with  the  faith  of  an  army  in  its 
chief,  or  of  a  child  in  his  parent,  or  of  a  wife  in  her  hus- 
band. When  one's  trust  in  the  Saviour  involves  the 
dearest  interests  of  the  immortal  and  spiritual  life,  above 
all,  when  it  puts  one  into  direct  contact  with  God  and 
fetches  down  into  the  dead  bad  heart  a  special  energy  from 
above,  who  need  wonder  that  "  all  things  are  possible  to 
him  that  believeth  "  ? 


(     i64     ) 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

CHRIST'S  DEATH  TO  SIN. 

"For  he  that  hath  died  is  justified  from  sin.  But  if  we  died  with  Christ, 
we  believe  that  we  shall  also  live  with  Him  ;  knowing  that  Christ  being  raised 
from  the  dead  dieth  no  more  ;  death  no  more  hath  dominion  over  Him.  For 
the  death  that  He  died,  He  died  unto  sin  once :  but  the  life  that  He  liveth,  He 
liveth  unto  God."— PtOM.  vi.  7-10. 

rPHE  interest  of  Christ's  death  and  resurrection  lies  for 
-*-  us  not  merely  in  the  unparalleled  marvellousness  and 
solemnity  of  that  dual  fact,  but  even  more  in  its  relation 
to  our  personal  history.  Throughout  this  passage  of  his 
letter  (as  we  have  already  seen  in  last  chapter)  St.  Paul 
binds  up  the  dying  and  living  again  of  Jesus  with  the 
Christian's  in  such  an  intimate  fashion  that  the  moral 
results  of  them  are  extended  to  us.  In  His  dying  we  are 
dead  :  in  His  new  life  we  live.  As  a  matter,  therefore,  of 
practical  experience,  it  concerns  us  to  understand,  if  we 
can,  the  unusual  and  somewhab  strained  expressions  by 
which  the  Apostle  labours  in  this  passage  to  bring  out 
more  fully  than  he  has  yet  done  the  inner  meaning  and 
bearings  of  the  Lord's  death  and  life. 

First,  then,  let  us  seek  to  understand  what  is  said  of 
the  Lord's  death.  We  arrive  most  easily  at  what  the 
writer  intends  by  his  phrase,  "  He  died  unto  sin,"  *  if  we 

*  I  take  the  rrj  a/aapTia  diredavev  in  the  wider  sense  as  the  Dative  of 
Reference  ;  as  is  done  by  the  best  modern  expositors,  such  as  Meyer, 
Yon  Hofmann,  Tholuck,  Philippi,  and  Alford. 


CHUIST's  DEATH  TO  SIN.  1 65 

start  from  a  familiar  form  of  speech  in  daily  use.  Nothing 
connected  with  death  is  more  impressive  than  the  sudden 
and  total  stop  which  it  puts  to  the  relationships  of  fore- 
going life.  Of  him  who  died  only  an  hour  ago,  we  can  say 
that  already  he  is  done  with  this  world.  Whatever 
interest  he  possessed  in  it  is  at  an  end.  The  ties  which 
bound  him  to  it  are  cut.  From  every  obligation  which  it 
imposed  on  him  he  is  discharged.  Yesterday  the  man 
formed  a  busy  unit  in  the  complicated  system  of  inter- 
acting forces  which  we  name  Society,  entangled  by  a  thou- 
sand threads  of  family  and  trade  and  public  life  with  the 
atfairs  of  other  men,  owning  rights  and  owing  duties.  In 
the  thick  of  it  all,  how  has  one  swift  scythe-sweep  cut  him 
clear  !  You  are  alone  in  the  darkened  room  with  the  man 
who  was  so  active  and  needful,  around  whom  a  myriad 
interests  clustered ;  but  what  has  that  passionless  face 
upon  the  bier  to  do  any  more  with  the  warm  world  which 
breathes  and  whirls  outside  the  chamber  window  ?  Neither 
love,  nor  hate,  nor  desire,  nor  care,  comes  here  to  move  him 
more.  His  world  is  elsewhere ;  his  life  is  far  away. 
Condense  into  one  most  forcible  word  this  utter  change  in 
a  man's  relations  to  everything  which  formerly  affected 
him  :  what  better  can  you  say  than  this — "  He  is  dead  to 
this  world  "  ? 

When  we  apply  this  definition  of  the  phrase  to  the  case 
of  Jesus,  and  inquire  what  is  meant  by  affirming  of  Him, 
"  The  death  that  He  died.  He  died  unto  sin "  *  two 
questions  emerge.  I.  What  connection  had  Jesus  with 
sin  before  His  death  ?  2.  How  came  His  dying  to  sever 
that  connection? 

I.  As  to  the  former:  The  connection  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
with  sin  so  long  as  He  lived  an  earthly  life  was  the  most 
complete  which  it  is  possible  for  a  sinless  person  to  have. 

*  ver.  10,  R.  V. 


I  66    THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

"  He  knew  no  sin"  by  that  sad  experimental  knowledge 
which  implies  its  entrance  within  the  soul  to  stain  and 
wreck  it.  When  you  have  named  this  single  exception — 
a  splendid  one  certainly — to  the  completeness  of  His  con- 
nection with  sin,  you  have  named  all.  What  else  have  we 
to  do  with  it  which  He  had  not  ?  Ours,  not  His,  is  the 
doing  of  sin  with  the  will's  consent ;  whatever  follows  on 
the  doing  of  it  was  His  as  well  as  ours.  In  other  words, 
the  legal  investiture  of  His  person  with  the  responsibility 
attaching  to  sin  was  so  complete  that  throughout  His  entire 
life  we  see  the  earthly  fruits  and  pains  consequent  upon 
wrong-doing  fall  upon  Him  with  their  full  force.  For  ex- 
ample, in  the  constitution  of  His  body,  born  with  the  same 
frailty  and  exposure  to  pain  and  ill  as  we  all  share ;  in  the 
curse  of  sweat  for  daily  bread,  while  He  wrought  at  the 
bench ;  in  the  endurance  of  fatigue  and  want,  when  worn 
down  to  an  early  grave  through  drudgery  by  day  and  vigils 
by  night,  through  the  anxiety  and  the  grief  that  sap  the 
strength  of  men.  His  soul  shared  the  same  curse:  for,  if  it 
is  sin  which  breathes  suspicion  for  love  into  human  hearts, 
turning  the  honey  of  confident  afiection  into  gall.  He 
surely  had  His  share  of  distrust,  un kindness,  miscon- 
struction, treachery.  If  fear  of  death  be  born  of  sin — that 
vague  foreboding,  I  mean,  which  like  a  night-dream 
haunts  the  souls  of  mortal  men — may  we  not  compare 
with  that  the  mysterious  uncertain  gloom  which  plainly 
deepened  over  the  Christ  as  His  brief  career  drew  towards 
its  end  ?  ISTor  was  sin's  power  exerted  only  over  soul  and 
body.  The  awful  experience  of  forsakenness  on  the  cross 
gives  a  hint  of  deeps  of  spiritual  distress  which  we  are 
unable  to  sound.  They  probably  find  their  nearest  ana- 
logue in  the  horror  which  some  spiritual  natures  have 
betrayed,  when  the  divine  sentence  against  sin — the 
sentence  of  separation  from  the  God  of  love — appeared  to 


Christ's  death  to  six.  167 

be  actually  executing  itself  before  its  time,  and  a  thick 
darkness  blotted  out  from  the  heavens  overhead  the  face 
of  an  offended  Father.  Who  will  venture  to  say  that  St. 
Paul's  terrible  phrase,  "  made  a  curse,"  is  too  strong  to 
express  the  hold  which  sin's  penalty  laid  upon  our  Victim, 
or  that  the  whole  of  our  Lord's  stainless  humanity  was 
not  wrapt  around  and  penetrated  through  and  through 
by  the  tremendous  retributive  force  of  sin  ?  Connection 
with  sin  !  He  w^as  all  Sin's  own  ;  its  prey,  surrendered 
for  some  divine  necessity  to  the  Devourer;  the  choicest 
portion  ever  seized  upon  to  be  borne  down  to  the  keeping 
of  Sin's  child,  Death,  within  Sin's  home,  the  grave. 

2.  The  whole  of  this  connection  with  sin  is  said  to  have 
terminated  at  death.  It  has  not  been  so  with  any  other 
man.  Other  men  spend  their  earthly  existence  under  the 
same  penal  conditions  as  I  have  described  in  His  case;  but 
what  room  have  we  to  suppose  that  the  act  of  dying  has 
proved  to  be  in  any  other  case  the  end  of  sin — unless  it 
were  through  their  connection  with  Him  ?  Men  who 
stand  on  the  verge  of  the  unseen  world  have  no  reason  to 
look  forward  to  the  act  of  dying  as  an  escape  either  from 
the  sinful  habits  which  they  have  contracted  in  this  life,  or 
from  the  judgment  of  heaven  upon  their  misdeeds  done 
in  the  body.  So  far  from  that,  the  instinctive  voice  of 
conscience  confirms  the  declaration  of  Holy  Writ  that 
"after  death  comes  the  judgment."  Nor  is  there  the 
slightest  ground  for  supposing  that  death  can  operate  as  a 
purifier,  restoring  lost  natures  to  innocence  and  virtue. 
It  is  far  more  rational  to  apprehend  that  the  human  spirit, 
when  set  free  from  the  restraints  of  the  present  state,  and 
flung  loose  in  all  its  abused  but  magnificent  strength  to 
do  what  it  pleases  without  rein,  may  indulge  in  the 
spiritual  sins  of  pride,  hatred,  and  defiance  of  God  on  a 
scale  rarely  if  ever  beheld  on  earth. 


1 68  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDIXG  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

But  what  no  otlier  man's  death  can  be  expected  to  do 
was  done  by  the  death  of  Jesus  the  sinless.  That  is  to 
say,  it  closed  His  connection  with  sin,  for  this  simple 
reason  that  in  His  case  alone  that  connection  had  been 
outward,  not  inward;  a  guiltless  submission  to  sin's 
penalty,  not  a  guilty  surrender  to  sin's  power.  From 
first  to  last  the  sin  which  is  in  our  race  remained  to 
Him  a  foreign  foe,  that  could  gain  no  entrance  into 
the  citadel  of  His  will  to  corrupt  or  master  His  spiritual 
nature;  and  the  connection  which  He  sustained  with 
it  was  merely  that  of  a  sufferer  who  owes  a  death  to 
justice  for  imputed  sins  of  other  men.  Once  that  death 
was  paid,  and  all  the  suffering  endured  which  filled 
up  the  "cup"  put  into  His  hand  to  be  drunk,  His 
connection  with  imputed  sin  was  of  necessity  dissolved. 
"  The  death  which  He  died  was  a  death  unto  sin — once 
for  all." 

From  this  aspect  of  the  facts,  how  plainly  does  it  appear 
that  the  peculiar  character  of  our  Lord's  passion,  and  its 
peculiar  virtue  as  an  expiation  for  guilt,  turned  entirely 
upon  His  personal  sinlessness !  As  a  sufferer  He  stands 
alone  in  this,  that  He  is  the  sole  instance  known  to  us  of 
guiltless  and  voluntary  and  meritorious  suffering.  "  Num- 
bered among  transgressors,"  so  as  freely  to  embrace  their 
legal  position  and  hold  His  life  for  theirs  as  forfeit  to  the 
law :  yet  "  separate  from  sinners,"  so  that  over  His  pure 
and  holy  nature  sin  never  won  that  moral  mastery  which 
survives  legal  death  and  renders  spiritual  death  eternal. 
Till  this  unique  position  of  the  Son  of  Man  amongst  men 
is  distinctly  perceived,  it  is  impossible  to  understand  how 
death,  the  law's  supreme  penalty,  could  do  in  His  person 
what  it  does  in  no  other :  terminate  the  law's  claim  and 
set  Him  free  from  the  power  of  evil,  so  that  in  dying  He 
should  die  for  ever  unto  sin.    Having  thus  "  sufiered  in  the 


CHRIST'S  DEATH  TO  SIN".  1 69 

flesh,"   He   "ceased  from   sin."     "Death   no  more  hath 
dominion  over  Him." 

This  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the  second  fact  in  St. 
Paul's  statement.  From  such  a  death  as  this  there  could 
issue  only  life — a  life  unto  God. 

Let  it  be  observed,  in  the  first  place,  that  Jesus  having 
ceased  to  be  under  the  power  of  the  world's  sin,  in  any 
sense,  could  not  but  live  anew.  For  to  "die  unto  sin" 
must  mean  to  die  unto  death — to  be  done  with  it.  It  is 
the  law's  sentence  against  sin  which  places  on  Death's 
head  an  iron  crown  and  keeps  it  there.  When  the  law's 
sentence  has  been  endured,  and  the  power  of  sin  as  guilt 
has  been  exhausted,  the  royalty  of  Death  is  over.  He 
who  in  dying  is  become  free  from  sin  and  its  effects,  must 
be  free  from  death ;  since  death  is  for  man  the  chief  effect 
of  sin.  In  dying,  therefore,  Jesus  was  done  with  death. 
He  dies  no  more.  He  lives.  So  absolutely  certain  because 
grounded  in  a  spiritual  necessity  is  that  great  word  which 
St.  Peter  spoke  to  the  Jews  when  he  declared  it  was  "  not 
possible  "  that  Jesus  should  be  holden  of  death.* 

More  than  that :  The  life  which  emerges  when  sin  and 
death  have  been  died  to,  is  a  life  "  unto  God."  The  form  of 
this  remarkable  expression  is  evidently  determined  by  the 
contrast  which  St.  Paul  intends  to  mark  with  the  preced- 
ing clause.  "Life  unto  God"  is  meant  to  constitute  an 
antithesis  to  that  antecedent  life  unto  sin  which  in  dying 
was  brought  to  a  close.  The  new  state  of  Christ's  human 
existence  is  to  be  the  negation  of  the  old — its  clear  contrary. 
It  is  more :  it  is  its  counterpart.  It  is  nothing  which  the 
old  life  was,  as  a  life  unto  sin ;  it  is  everything  which 
the  former  was  not. 

Having  seen  above  how  the  earthly  condition  of  Jesus 

*  Acts  ii.  24. 


I  70  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

involved  a  close  contact  with  sin,  so  that  He  was  burdened 
by  it  in  soul,  body,  and  spirit,  we  can  readily  trace  the 
contrast  which  His  risen  life  has  to  offer.  Let  the  reader 
glance  through  these  sin-affected  details  of  His  earthly 
existence,  and  work  out  the  comparison  for  himself.  Over 
against  that  body,  alive  to  sin  and  consequently  heir  to 
infirmity,  mortality,  and  pain,  over  against  its  exposure 
to  waste  and  want  and  weariness,  its  mean  necessities,  its 
honourless  condition  when  men  tore  it  and  marred  it  with 
shameful  violence  and  insult,  must  be  set  a  godlike  organ 
for  divine  life  to  inhabit,  fashioned  within  that  strange 
workshop — the  grave,  and  now  found  fit  to  move  amid 
celestial  scenes  with  unfatigued  strength,  and  to  be  the 
centre  in  its  unwithering  beauty  of  celestial  homage  as  it 
sits  upon  the  throne  of  God.  0  grave  in  Joseph's  garden, 
where  is  thy  victory  !  To  this  changed  constitution  of  His 
body  falls  to  be  added  a  corresponding  change  also  in 
Christ's  manner  of  life.  Think  of  our  family  homes,  vexed 
as  they  are  by  passion,  limited  to  a  spot  of  earth  and  a  few 
years  of  time — homes  whose  doors  open  daily  to  unwel- 
come visitors  like  sickness  and  anxiety,  open  now  and 
then  to  let  loved  inmates  depart  never  to  return.  In  such 
a  home  as  these  lay  the  appropriate  scene  for  His  narrow 
and  chequered  experience  so  long  as  He  was  alive  unto 
sin.  There,  like  any  of  us,  it  was  meet  that  He  too  should 
toil  and  struggle  and  grieve.  But  now  that  He  liveth  unto 
God,  it  is  in  a  home  which  no  ungodlike  thing  can  enter. 
Lifted  in  the  surroundings  of  His  life  far  above  the  reach 
of  sorrow,  reproach,  vexation,  or  wrong,  above  these  checked 
and  straitened  ways  of  mortals,  He  inhabits  now  the  cloud- 
less, passionless  dwelling-place  of  God,  and  drinks  for  ever 
the  fulness  of  bliss  that  issues  from  waveless  depths  in  God 
the  Fountain.  Within  such  a  divine  home,  safe  and  re- 
mote from  evil,  had  dwelt  the  Everlasting  Son  before  the 


CHRIST  S  DEATH  TO  SIN.  I  7  I 

days  began  when  He  lived  unto  sin.  To  it  He  has  now 
borne  back  from  earth  a  human  nature  which,  living  here 
below,  lived  unto  sin,  and  dying,  died  unto  it,  but  now 
that  it  liveth  again,  liveth  for  ever  unto  God. 

It  is  the  note  or  mark  of  this  transfigured  life  that  it  is 
^'  unto  God."  That  is  to  say,  God  takes  the  place  in  refer- 
ence to  His  new  manner  of  living  which  sin  formerly  held, 
and  the  curse  for  sin.  A  blessed  exchange !  What  a 
sweet  surprise  to  close  one's  eyes  upon  a  world  where  every 
hour  had  been  weighted  with  all  that  sin  entails  of  vanity 
and  bitterness,  to  awake  within  the  arms  of  God,  in  the 
security  and  tender  cherishing  of  an  embrace  that  shuts 
in  all  bliss  for  evermore !  Life  hid  in  God,  where  no  foe 
can  reach  it ;  spent  with  God,  where  no  sorrow  dims  it. 
Memories  of  the  years  through  which  He  lived  unto  sin  in 
Galilee  and  Judaea,  memories  of  heart-ache  and  fear,  of 
dark  passages  of  temptation  and  the  near  neighbourhood 
of  the  Evil  One,  of  the  fight  of  faith,  and  of  passion  unto 
death — these  will  linger,  will  they  not,  about  the  thoughts 
of  our  dear  King  ?  They  may  be  the  song  of  saints  and 
the  wonder  of  the  angels  while  eternity  grows  old.  But 
it  will  be  as  a  far-off  fearful  tale  of  days  that  come  again 
no  more.  Around  this  tale  affection  will  twine,  and 
gratitude  will  sing  the  song  that  is  ever  new.  But  me- 
thinks,  long  after  the  end  of  all  things  earthly  shall  have 
been  left  in  the  dim  past,  it  will  not  be  without  a  flush  of 
warmer  security  that  the  joyous  immortals  will  recall  how 
this  blessed  life  of  Him  in  Whom  they  live  grew  up  out 
of  the  very  grave  of  death,  murmuring  the  one  to  the 
other,  "  The  death  that  He  died,  He  died  unto  sin  once ; 
but  the  life  that  He  liveth.  He  liveth  unto  God." 


(       172       ) 


CHAPTER  XV. 

OF  REALISING  THE  IDEAL. 

"Even  so  reckon  ye  also  yourselves  to  be  dead  unto  sin,  but  alive  unto 
God  in  Christ  Jesus.  Let  not  sin  therefore  reign  in  your  mortal  body,  that 
ye  should  obey  the  lusts  thereof :  neither  present  your  members  unto  sin  as 
instilments  of  unrighteousness  ;  but  present  yourselves  unto  God,  as  alive 
from  the  dead,  and  your  members  as  instruments  of  righteousness  unto  God. 
For  sin  shall  not  have  dominion  over  you  :  for  ye  are  not  under  law,  but 
under  grace." — KOM.  vi.  11-14. 

TT  is  the  young  who  are  sanguine  and  live  among  ideals. 
■*-  To  most  people  the  experience  which  life  brings  is  an 
experience  of  disillusion.  Ideals  which  are  never  realised 
have,  notwithstanding,  a  valuable  place  in  the  formation 
of  character.  Although  no  man  walks  the  earth  so  brave 
and  noble,  nor  any  woman  half  so  fair,  as  the  hero  and 
the  heroine  of  our  boyish  dream,  yet  one's  whole  life  would 
have  been  the  poorer  had  the  dream  not  been  dreamt.  A 
large  part  of  the  education  which  develops  any  generous 
or  gentle  nature,  consists  in  evoking  a  lofty  conception 
of  what  befits  it,  of  what  it  ought  to  be  in  order  to  be 
worthy  of  itself.  A  well-bred  man  may  fall  at  times  far 
beneath  his  own  conception  of  a  gentleman.  Still,  that 
conception,  cherished,  reverenced,  and  aimed  at,  is  after  all 
what  makes  a  gentleman  of  him.  No  wise  man,  therefore, 
will  mock  at  aspirations  after  perfection  ;  since  it  is  certain 
that  such  excellence  as  is  attained  in  this  world  comes 
by  striving  after  the  unattainable,  a  striving  which  fails 
indeed,  yet  does  not  wholly  fail. 


OF  REALISING  THE  IDEAL.  I  J 2> 

I  am  naturally  led  to  these  trite  remarks  because  they 
full  in  with  the  scope  of  the  Apostle's  exhortation  in  the 
passage  before  us.  What  is  true  of  life  in  general  is  still 
more  true  of  the  Christian  life.  St.  Paul  is  here  holding 
up  before  his  Roman  correspondents  the  Christian  ideal. 
He  is  rousing  them  to  aim  at  realising  it,  although 
its  complete  realisation  be  for  the  present  out  of  their 
reach.  But  he  goes  a  step  further  than  other  educators 
venture  to  do ;  for  he  encourages  them  with  the  assurance 
that  their  ideal  is  certain  one  day  to  be  realised. 

I.  What  then  is  the  theory  of  the  Christian's  condition  ? 
As  just  explained  by  the  Apostle,  it  is  this  :  The  Christian 
is  a  man  who,  like  his  Master,  is  already  dead  to  all  sin 
and  alive  only  toward  God.  He  has  ceased,  in  other 
words,  to  have  anything  further  to  do  with  sin.  W^ith 
God  he  has  everything  to  do.  This  has  resulted  as  a 
matter  of  course  from  the  close  union,  or,  as  it  were, 
incorporation,  which  his  faith  has  effected  betwixt  him 
and  Jesus  Christ. 

The  experience  through  which  Jesus  Himself  passed 
while  He  was  on  earth  has  just  before  been  described  as  a 
"  dying  to  sin."  We  have  seen  in  the  last  chapter  how 
the  relations  with  human  sin  into  which  He  freely  entered 
along  with  us  were  of  such  a  character  that  He  could  only 
get  rid  of  them  through  death.  He  was  "  made  under 
the  Law,"  ''  made  sin,"  "  reckoned  among  transgressors." 
By  these  and  the  like  expressions,  Scripture  makes  it  clear 
that  in  some  way  which,  however  mysterious,  was  yet 
most  real,  Christ  took  upon  Himself  a  partnership  in  other 
men's  sad  heritage  of  condemnation  and  mortality.  From 
the  strong  detaining  hand  which  the  world's  sin  thus  laid 
upon  Him,  He  found  no  way  to  escape  but  by  dying 
outright.     That  was  escape.     When  a  man  has  died,  says 


I  74  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

St.  Paul  (in  verse  7),  he  is  justified  from  sin.  No  criminal 
code  on  earth  has  any  claims  over  the  dead.  Death  is 
the  convict's  quittance.  It  is  his  discharge.  Just  so,  the 
death  of  Jesus  as  His  supreme  act  of  homage  to  divine 
Law  and  His  endurance,  of  the  utmost  that  justice  could 
do  to  Him,  was  His  conclusive  discharge.  By  it  He  was 
"justified"  from  every  claim  which  sin  had  acquired 
over  Him  as  our  representative.  Thereafter,  as  we  saw,  He 
could  not  but  rise  to  live  a  life  in  which  our  sin  and  curse 
had  no  more  any  part  to  play ;  a  life  which  had  thence- 
forth to  do  only  with  God  and  with  the  peace  and  bright- 
ness and  felicity  which  are  in  God. 

Through  this  entire  experience  it  is  ever  to  be  recollected 
that  the  Lord  Jesus  passed  simply  as  a  Leader  or  Head, 
empowered  to  act  in  man's  name  and  on  man's  behalf. 
Do  I  personally  rely  on  that  ?  Can  I  heartily  as  a 
penitent  accept  of  His  surrender  of  His  life  as  the  for- 
feiture which  was  due  to  myself  for  sins  of  my  own,  so 
that  it  is  for  me  He  has  gone  back  justified  to  His  Father's 
heaven  ?  Then,  in  Paul's  language,  I  grow  together  into 
one  with  Christ.  By  taking  home  to  myself  the  experi- 
ence of  my  Eedeemer,  I  enter  personally  into  sympathy 
with  it.  I  come  under  the  spiritual  power  of  it.  A 
parallel  experience  passes  over  my  own  moral  being.  I 
grow  incorporate  with  His  death  and  resurrection.  The 
evil-loving,  sinning  self  in  me  is  slain  and  a  new  man 
born  in  me.  After  that  it  may  be  truly  said  that  I  like- 
wise have  "died  to  sin,"  bat  live  now  afresh  to  God  and 
righteousness. 

Here,  then,  is  the  ideal  condition  of  the  Christian 
believer.  He  is  a  man  in  Christ.  In  theory,  he  has  hence- 
forth just  as  little  to  do  with  sin  in  any  shape  as  Jesus 
has  in  heaven ;  which  lets  us  see  a  little  how  St.  Paul  can 
elsewhere  employ  such  amazing  language  about  mortal 


OF  EEALISING  THE  IDEAL.  I  75 

men  as  this :  "  Eisen  with  Christ ;  "  "  sitting  with  Christ 
in  heaven  ;  "  their  life  "  hid  with  Him  in  God."  *  Such 
is  Christian  life  in  its  conception.  Such  therefore  it  must 
aim  at  becoming  in  fact. 

It  is  no  answer  to  this  to  say,  as  may  truly  be  said, 
that  there  never  was  nor  will  be  a  single  Christian  on  earth, 
not  Paul  himself,  who  fulfils  such  an  ideal.  The  best  of 
believers  are  the  most  ready  to  admit  that  they  have  far 
too  much  to  do  with  sin.  It  tempts  them,  and  they  yield 
sometimes  to  the  temptation.  It  infects  them  still,  and 
nothing  they  can  do  quite  escapes  from  the  infection. 
When  they  commit  evil,  it  stings  and  humiliates  them. 
Christians  err  and  blunder;  they  lust  and  they  indulge 
lust.  Christians  confess  all  this,  and  burn  with  shame 
and  grief  for  their  daily  faults,  just  as  other  men  have  to 
do.  It  is  all  too  true.  Still,  this  is  no  reason  at  all  why 
the  believer  should  not  have  his  ideal,  cherishing  the 
splendid  vision  of  what  in  essence  Christ's  man  is  bound 
to  be.  Nor  is  it  any  reason  why  he  should  not  steadily 
contemplate  that  vision,  as  St.  Paul  bids  him  do,  and 
"reckon"  it  to  be,  what  it  really  is,  his  legitimate  and 
proper  condition.  Paul  would  have  Christian  people  fix 
this  well  in  their  hearts  as  a  true  description  of  the  ideal 
Christian  :  "  dead  to  sin,  alive  only  to  God ;  "  a  description, 
too,  not  drawn  upon  empty  air,  but  actually  existent  in  their 
risen  Lord.  He  would  have  us  get  into  the  habit  of  look- 
ing up  at  His  bright  image,  as  exhibiting  what  we  are  to 
become ;  nay,  as  what  in  the  purpose  of  God  we  truly  are, 
although  as  yet  the  Divine  Educator  is  far  from  having 
fully  realised  His  conception. 

n.  It  is  obviously  with  a  practical  design  that  the 
writer  bids  the  Christian  cherish  such  a  conception  of  his 
proper  character. 

*  See  Eph.  ii.  5,  6 ;  Col.  iii.  1-3  ;  and  compare  2  Cor.  v.  17. 


I  76  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

All  life  strives  to  fulfil  itself.  It  makes  for  that  wbicli 
it  was  made  to  be.  In  the  moral  training  of  character,  as 
we  have  already  been  reminded,  there  is  no  better  way  of 
attaining  an  ideal  than  to  be  persuaded  that  it  is  the  true 
ideal  yor  us.  Whenever  a  boy  thinks  himself  old  enough 
to  be  a  man,  he  tries  to  grow  manly.  Eemind  an  English- 
man that  he  is  one ;  you  call  up  a  style  of  behaviour  to 
which  he  feels  himself  bound  to  conform.  Eear  a  lad  in 
the  knowledge  that  he  has  been  born  to  the  purple ;  and 
he  will  either  affect  the  airs,  or  claim  the  license,  or  dis- 
charge the  functions,  of  princely  rank.  In  one  way  or 
another,  we  all  of  us  try  to  play  the  part  which  we  have 
been  led  to  regard  as  our  own.  On  the  same  principle 
would  St.  Paul  have  the  Christian  reckon  that,  being  a 
Christian,  he  is  a  person  who  has  done  with  sin ;  since 
thus  he  lays  a  basis  for  the  practical  exhortation :  "  Let 
not  sin  therefore  reign  in  your  mortal  body,  that  ye  should 
obey  the  lusts  thereof." 

Put  the  matter  in  this  form :  You  are  a  man  supposed 
to  be  in  idea  dead  to  all  sin.  Yet  in  a  given  instance  an 
evil  desire  has  mastered  you.  Is  there  not  betwixt  these 
two  facts  an  incongruity,  not  simply  painful,  but  intoler- 
able? They  cannot  possibly  hang  together.  A  contra- 
diction in  fact  between  your  theoretical  position  and  your 
actual  conduct  is  not  a  state  of  matters  in  which  you  can 
rest.  Either  your  ideal  must  be  abandoned ;  or  an  effort 
must  be  made  to  shape  your  behaviour  in  compliance  with 
it.  But  your  ideal  is  what  you  dare  not  abandon  ;  for 
that  would  be  to  abandon  Christ.  The  conclusion  becomes 
irresistible :  let  not  this  wrong  desire  lord  it  any  longer 
in  this  fashion  over  you — a  man  dead  to  all  sin ! 

Such  an  appeal  to  the  believer's  consciousness  of  his  true 
position  in  Christ  is  equally  valid,  of  course,  whatever  be 
the  shape  in   which   sin  has   overcome   him.      The  evil 


OF  REALISING  THE  IDEAL.  177 

desires  (or  "  lusts,"  as  our  version  lias  it)  whicli  may  arise 
in  the  heart  are  countless,  for  they  range  over  the  whole 
domain  of  experience.  But  the  principle  at  the  root  of 
them  all  is  the  same.  They  agree  in  being  opposed  to 
the  divine  will.  With  that  fondness  for  personification 
which  distinguished  him,  Paul  accordingly  gathers  up  all 
wrong  desires  under  this  central  principle  of  resistance  to 
the  divine  will,  calls  that  hy  the  name  of  Sin,  and  goes 
on  to  speak  of  it  as  though  it  were  a  rival  lord  or  sovereign 
over  men — a  kind  of  anti-god.  Then  each  single  desire 
after  what  God  forbids  is  naturally  conceived  of  as  one  of 
the  commands  of  Sin,  conflicting  with  a  counter  command 
of  God.  When  you  carry  out  that  desire  in  action,  you 
are,  so  to  speak,  obeying  Sin.  You  are  suffering  it  to 
reign  over  you  as  your  master. 

How  can  a  Christian  do  that  ?  It  is  true  that  our  Lord 
Jesus  said,  in  words  which  clearly  underlie  this  figure  of 
St.  Paul,  that  "  Every  one  who  committeth  sin  is  the  bond- 
servant of  sin."  But  has  not  that  servitude  been  broken 
for  a  Christian  by  the  death  of  Christ  ?  How  then  can 
you  call  it  broken,  if,  so  often  as  you  do  wrong,  you  are 
practically  owning  Sin  afresh  for  your  over-lord  ?  To  do 
what  God  forbids  because  the  Sin  of  your  heart  bids  it : 
what  else  is  this  but  to  fight  against  the  rule  of  God  in 
order  to  restore  Sin's  broken  and  discarded  empire  ? 
Each  instance  of  this  sort  really  does  something  towards 
re-establishing  the  sway  of  Sin ;  for  it  renders  the  strength 
of  Sin  within  the  man  stronger  by  weakening  his  power 
of  resistance.  To  act  in  this  way  is  actually  (as  St.  Paul 
works  out  his  figure  in  verse  13)  to  lend  oneself  as  a 
worker  and  fighter  on  the  side  of  Sin.  It  is  to  misuse 
one's  very  organs,  faculties  and  members  as  so  many  tools 
to  work  with  or  weapons  to  fight  with — tools  and  weapons 
of  unrighteousness.     How  glaring  is  this  inconsistency! 

M 


I  yS  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

To  be  one  with  Christ  and  have  done  with  the  sin  He  died 
to ;  yet  employ  the  tongue  to  whisper  malicious  suspicions 
or  gloze  over  a  dishonest  bargain,  and  the  eyes  to  gaze 
with  envious  longing  at  the  prosperity  of  one's  neighbours, 
so  that  eyes  and  tongue,  redeemed  for  God,  are  degraded 
into  implements  for  restoring  again  the  kingdom  of  false- 
hood and  uncharitableness. 

Life  is  full  of  similar  inconsistencies.  Yes;  but  the 
more  plainly  unchristian  acts  are  confronted  with  the 
Christian  ideal  so  as  to  expose  their  glaring  inconsistency, 
the  less  likely  are  they  to  be  repeated.  We  can  do  a  great 
deal  by  trying,  when  it  is  God  who  worketh  in  us.  When 
one's  thoughts  are  occupied  with  the  splendid  perfection 
which  St.  Paul  has  sketched  for  us  as  the  only  life  which 
it  is  proper  for  us  as  Christians  to  lead,  then  it  is  that  one 
feels  most  keenly  ashamed  of  one's  actual  worldliness, 
vanity,  temper,  meanness,  quarrels,  discontents.  Then  it 
is  that,  moved  by  shame  and  a  holy  ambition,  one  strives 
most  earnestly  to  yield  complete  service  to  the  will  of  God. 
Let  the  believer  think,  then,  what  he  is,  that  he  may 
become  what  he  ought  to  be.  Broken  off  from  sin — let 
there  be  no  feeble  or  furtive  concession  to  it  at  any  point. 
Live  solely  for  the  work  of  God.  Let  us  spend  ourselves 
wholly  in  His  pure  and  beneficent  service'. 

Is  it  still  insisted  on  that  all  this  is  nothing  but  an  ideal, 
beautiful,  like  other  ideals,  but  no  more  to  be  attained 
than  they  ?  Life,  as  I  said,  is  full  of  disillusions ;  and 
here  is  one  of  them.  Enthusiastic  persons  without  ex- 
perience set  out  in  youth's  morning  with  eyes  that  glisten, 
because  to  them  the  world  is  clad  in  hues  of  promise,  and. 
the  future,  lovely  as  a  dream  but  not  more  real,  beckons 
onward  their  eager  footsteps.  Wait  but  a  little  while 
till  the  glamour  is  spent,  and  in  the  dull  grey  light  of  fact 


OF  REALISING  THE  IDEAL.  I  79 

the  same  man  will  be  found  plodding  wearily  forward  with 
the  dogged  look  upon  his  face  of  one  whose  blessedness 
it  is  to  expect  nothing.  Does  not  that  sum  up  for  most 
of  us  our  stock  of  experience  ?  Will  it  be  otherwise  with 
a  Christian's  enthusiasm  for  a  sinless  life  ? 

This  it  is  which  chills  the  ardour  of  many  and  para- 
lyses their  endeavours  after  holiness.  The  fear  of  this,  too, 
withholds  many  more  from  entering  with  any  seriousness 
on  the  Christian  course.  It  is  worth  while  to  ask,  Is  there 
good  ground  to  say  that  the  believer's  ideal  must  prove  as 
unattainable  as  those  of  other  men,  or  lead  him  in  the  end 
to  a  similar  disappointment  ? 

For  one  thing,  it  is  not  true  that  the  genuine  Christian, 
as  he  gets  on  in  life  and  draws  near  its  close,  thinks  less 
about  his  early  ideal  of  perfect  holiness,  or  believes  in 
it  less,  or  longs  less  ardently  after  its  attainment  than  he 
did  at  first.  This  is  purely  a  question  of  fact,  which  each 
reader  will  determine  for  himself,  according  to  his  obser- 
vation of  the  lives  of  Christians.  I  can  only  give  it  as  my 
own  observation  that  in  this  respect  a  Christian  believer  is 
unlike  other  men :  that  so  far  from  fading  away  before 
experience  and  the  sober  views  which  come  with  age,  his 
romantic  hope  to  be  sinless  as  Christ  Himself  dwells  more 
brightly  before  his  soul,  fascinates  him  more,  and  comes 
to  be  more  devoutly  believed  in,  in  proportion  as  the  sun 
of  life  declines  to  its  earthly  setting.  Question  an  aged 
saint  about  certain  golden  dreams  of  his  youth,  dreams  of 
fame  or  love,  of  doing  great  deeds  or  achieving  large 
success.  You  will  find  that  his  boyhood's  castle  of  hope 
has  melted  long  ago  into  the  thin  air  on  which  a  nimble 
fancy  painted  it.  But  ask  him  whether  the  dream  of 
his  early  ardour  when  faith  was  new,  that  one  day  he 
should  grow  like  Jesus,  sinless  and  perfect,  has  faded  like- 
wise.    Ask  if  his  long  experience  of  failure  has  quenched 


I  80  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

that  too  flattering  illusion  like  the  rest.  You  know  little 
if  you  do  not  know  what  reply  you  will  receive.  Age, 
not  youthj  is  the  Christian's  time  for  devout  anticipation 
and  the  longing  after  complete  holiness.  What  else 
draws  out  the  yearning  of  his  spirit,  weaned  from  earth, 
yet  not  weary  of  it,  towards  the  land  which  is  nearer  now 
than  when  he  first  believed?  What  kindles  the  dying 
eye  but  the  persuasion  that  to  put  off  the  flesh  is  to  be 
with  Christ  and  to  be  like  Him  ?  Is  not  this  the  very 
blessedness  which  he  expects  in  heaven  that  there  the 
days  of  failure  will  be  ended  and  the  long-sought-for 
ideal  attained  at  last  ?  Explain  it  how  you  please,  here 
at  least  is  one  vision  which  experience  does  not  dim. 

St.  Paul  has  an  explanation  to  offer,  and  it  is  a  very 
simple  one.  The  hope  of  Christians  is  actually  to  be 
attained.  A  life  quite  freed  from  bondage  to  evil  desire 
and  alive  only  to'  what  is  holy,  he  declares  to  be  no  devout 
imagination  luring  credulous  enthusiasts  on  a  bootless 
quest.  Some  of  us  indeed  might  say :  Were  it  even  un- 
attainable, it  would  still  be  our  highest  wisdom  to  hope 
for  it  and  to  aim  at  it.  Quench  this  ideal  of  the  sinless 
life  and  you  only  fling  back  the  hearts  of  men  into  moral 
despair.  But  the  Gospel  at  all  events  is  no  decoy  to 
virtue  under  false  pretences.  It  does  not  bid  us  deny  lusts 
which  are  never  to  be  quite  subdued,  or  wage  a  combat 
with  Sin  in  which  we  are  sure  to  be  beaten,  or  covet  a 
purity  that  is  unattainable.  Quite  the  contrary.  It  holds 
out  the  definite  assurance  that  one  day — not  very  remote 
— Sin  shall  cease  to  have  any  more  dominion  over  the 
believer.  Once  set  free  from  this  evil  w^orld  and  bodily 
life  of  man,  once  rapt  into  the  pure  presence  of  the  Eternal 
amid  stainless  comrades,  where  the  flesh  clogs  the  spirit 
no  more,  nor  any  unholy  environment  can  longer  oppress 
the  will,  it  will  be  easy,  it  will  be  delightful,  for  the  lover 


OF  REALISING  THE  IDEAL.  l8l 

of  goodness  to  be  good.     The  Christian  will  have  attained 
at  last  to  his  ideal.     He  will  be  like  Jesus  Christ. 

Nor  is  it  at  all  difficult  to  understand  how  the  Gospel  is 
able  to  guarantee  a  consummation  so  devoutly  to  be  wished. 
The  simple  explanation  is  that  it  has  placed  us  under  a 
regime,  no  longer  of  law,  but  of  grace  (verse  14).  The  law 
of  duty  can  do  no  more  than  make  known  what  we  ought 
to  do.  It  lends  no  help  at  all  towards  doing  it.  Now  the 
prime  disability  under  which  our  fallen  nature  lies  is  not 
ignorance,  so  much  as  disinclination.  Our  feeble  desire  to 
perform  what  is  right  is  overborne  by  far  stronger  desires 
after  what  is  wrong;  and  the  will,  seized  by  these  tyrannous 
cravings  of  the  flesh,  is  hurried  along  after  forbidden  in- 
dulgences. Against  forces  like  these  the  publication  of  a 
law  is  useless,  or  worse.  What  is  really  wanted  is  gracious 
and  prevailing  help.  To  win  over  to  the  side  of  righteous- 
ness the  strongest  forces  of  the  soul  herself;  to  kill  illicit 
desires  by  planting  pure  ones  in  their  stead ;  to  recover 
the  man  to  a  new  and  better  mind,  sustain  his  own  efforts 
after  goodness  by  the  charm  of  a  supreme  affection,  and 
pour  into  his  nature  the  healing  purifying  tide  of  a  divine 
life  through  the  energy  of  God  working  in  him  :  this  is  the 
cure  for  such  an  evil  case  as  men  are  in.  This  remedy 
the  Gospel  fetches  near  to  us  in  our  need ;  and  the  key 
word  of  the  whole  curative  system  into  which  it  has  intro- 
duced us  is — Grace. 


(     i82     ) 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

BONDMEN  OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

"What  then  ?  shall  we  sin,  because  we  are  not  under  law,  but  under  grace  ? 
God  forbid.  Know  ye  not,  that  to  whom  ye  present  yourselves  as  servants 
unto  obedience,  his  servants  ye  are  whom  ye  obey  ;  whether  of  sin  unto  death, 
or  of  obedience  unto  righteousness  ?  But  thanks  be  to  God,  that,  whereas  ye 
were  servants  of  sin,  ye  became  obedient  from  the  heart  to  that  form  of  teach- 
ing whereunto  ye  were  delivered  ;  and  being  made  free  from  sin,  ye  became 
servants  of  righteousness.  I  speak  after  the  manner  of  men  because  of  the 
infirmity  of  your  flesh:  for  as  ye  presented  your  members  as  servants  to 
uncleanness  and  to  iniquity  unto  iniquity,  even  so  now  present  your  members 
as  servants  to  righteousness  unto  sanctification.  For  when  ye  were  servants 
of  sin,  ye  were  free  in  regard  of  righteousness.  What  fruit  then  had  ye  at 
that  time  in  the  things  whereof  ye  are  now  ashamed  ?  for  the  end  of  those 
things  is  death.  But  now  being  made  free  from  sin,  and  become  servants  to 
God,  ye  have  your  fruit  unto  sanctification,  and  the  end  eternal  life.  For  the 
wages  of  sin  is  death  ;  but  the  free  gift  of  God  is  eternal  life  in  Christ  Jesus 
our  Lord. " — EOM.  vi.  15-23. 

OT.  PAUL'S  manner  of  thinking  is  frequently  hard  to 
'^  follow.  One  peculiarity  which  contributes  to  make  it 
a  difficult  exercise  to  track  his  reasoning  is  this :  On  the 
threshold  of  a  fresh  train  of  ideas,  when  the  subject  which 
fills  his  mind  has  been  no  more  than  started,  it  is  not  un- 
common to  find  him  suddenly  break  off  in  order  to  inter- 
ject some  side  thought  which  has  just  occurred  to  him. 
His  eager  intellect  has  not  the  patience  to  pursue  his  main 
argument.  He  must  first  turn  aside  to  hunt  down  the 
dependent  idea  which  has  caught  his  eye. 

Of  this  habit  of  his  we  have  an  instance  before  us.  In 
the  current  of  his  discussion  he  has  reached  this  point  at 


BONDMEN  OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS.  1 83 

tlie  fourteenth  verse  of  the  sixth  chapter.  He  is  about  to 
explain  how  the  position  of  a  believer  as  not  under  the 
Law  but  under  grace  as  a  condition  of  his  salvation  secures 
for  him  the  attainment  of  holiness.  The  phrase  he  has 
just  used,  "not  under  the  Law,  but  under  grace,"  calls  for 
further  exposition.  It  is  one  of  those  pregnant  contrasts 
which  in  a  pair  of  terms  sum  up  whole  chapters  of  theology 
and  of  religious  experience.  It  is  about  therefore  to  be 
made  the  starting-point  or  text  for  a  prolonged  discussion. 
Such  a  discussion  actually  follows  in  the  seventh  chapter 
and  part  of  the  eighth.  But  before  this  rapid  thinker  can 
permit  himself  to  enter  on  the  train  of  thought  which  is 
opening  before  him,  an  objection  starts  across  his  path  like 
an  apparition,  and  he  must  diverge  from  the  path  to  lay  it. 

The  objection  which  springs  up  so  suddenly  is  this : 
If,  as  you  say,  a  Christian  is  no  longer  under  the  Law  of 
Moses,  but  under  the  free,  that  is,  the  unmerited  favour  of 
God  as  the  source  of  his  salvation,  is  not  this  a  distinct 
license  to  him  to  sin  ?  For  what  else  can  it  practically 
mean  but  that  the  man  is  set  at  liberty  to  keep  or  to 
break  the  law  of  righteousness  at  his  pleasure  ? 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  is  essentially  a  mere  re-appear- 
ance, under  a  slight  change  of  form,  of  the  same  antino- 
minian  difficulty  which  was  dealt  with  at  the  opening  of  the 
sixth  chapter.  He  occupied  himself  then  through  several 
verses  in  laying  that  difficulty.  Yet  at  the  mere  sound  of 
this  paradox — "  not  under  Law,  but  grace  " — it  leaps  up 
afresh,  more  grim  and  threatening  than  before.  Are  we  to 
sin,  he  had  imagined  an  objector  to  inquire  at  the  first 
verse,  in  order  that  the  grace  of  God  may  have  the  more 
to  do  in  forgiving  sin  ?  Are  we  to  sin,  he  supposes  the 
objector  to  ask  now,  because  we  are  not  under  the  rule  of 
works  as  the  condition  of  our  salvation  ? 

The  reply  which  St.  Paul  gives  on  this  second  occasion 


1 84  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

can  only  be  in  substance  the  same  whicli  he  gave  before. 
To  that  recurring  difficulty  there  never  has  been,  nor  ever 
can  be,  any  valid  reply  save  one :  this,  namely,  that  the 
very  change  which  is  involved  in  a  man's  becoming  a 
believer  in  God's  free  grace  through  Christ,  renders  his 
continuance  in  sin  a  practical  impossibility.  This  is  what 
the  Apostle's  answer  in  the  earlier  passage  amounted  to 
when  he  said :  Union  to  Christ  makes  us  dead  to  sin ; 
how  can  we  live  any  longer  in  it?  This  is  just  what  his 
answer  now  amounts  to  when  he  says  in  the  end  of  the 
chapter :  Christians  were  slaves  to  sin  once,  no  doubt ; 
but  conversion  has  broken  that  service  in  order  that 
they  should  enter  another.  They  are  now  "  servants  unto 
righteousness." 

A  few  sentences  will  suffice  to  make  it  clear  how  he 
puts  this. 

First  of  all,  it  is  assumed  that  moral  agents  must  either 
keep  or  break  God's  Law,  either  sin  or  obey.  As  subjects 
of  God  with  a  Law  prescribed  to  us  which  covers  the  whole 
field  of  conduct,  we  cannot  act  at  all  without  either  con- 
forming to  the  divine  commands  or  traversing  them. 

Further :  In  choosing  to  act  on  either  of  these  principles 
of  conduct — obedience  or  lawlessness — a  man  becomes  of 
necessity  subject  to  it.  He  lends  himself  to  carry  it  out. 
Whoever  gives  practical  effect  to  the  will  of  any  one, 
becomes  de  facto  his  servant  (verse  1 6).  So  it  is  in  the 
case  before  us.  If  I  act  as  the  Law  of  God  prescribes,  I 
am  serving  God's  designs,  for  I  am  giving  effect  to  His 
righteous  will ;  or,  as  Paul  puts  it,  I  become  subservient 
to  the  rule  of  obedience,  with  this  result  that  I  attain  to 
righteousness.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  I  yield  to  illicit 
promptings,  then  I  make  myself  the  instrument  of  a  will  at 
variance  with  God's,  or,  in  other  words,  become  subservient 
to  the  principle  of  lawlessness,  which  is  Sin.    Between  these 


BONDMEN  OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS.  I  85 

two  forms  of  subservience,  it  is  true,  as  will  presently  be 
seen,  that  tliere  is  an  enormous  difference  ;  for  the  one  is  a 
real  bondage  of  the  human  will  to  a  tyrannic  power,  whereas 
in  the  other  is  to  be  found  the  only  moral  freedom  possible 
to  a  creature.  Still,  the  parallel  holds  sufficiently,  so  far 
as  the  main  point  of  the  comparison  is  concerned.  The 
point  intended  is  just  this,  that  we  cannot  act  at  all  with- 
out giving  practical  effect  either  to  the  will  of  God  or  to 
another  will  which  is  not  the  same  as  His. 

From  this  it  results  that  so  soon  as  any  one  ceases  to 
yield  service  to  the  one  of  these  contrasted  lords,  he  must 
of  necessity  begin  to  serve  the  other.  Both  righteousness 
and  sin  we  cannot  do  at  the  same  time.  In  ceasing  to  do 
the  one,  we  fall,  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  under  the  other. 
St.  Paul's  mode  of  expressing  this  is  peculiar,  simply 
because  he  carries  through  his  metaphor  of  servitude  with- 
out flinching.  To  be  practically  a  slave  to  sin  means  to 
be  free  (so  to  speak)  from  the  service  of  righteousness,  and 
conversely.  But  his  meaning  is  clear  enough.  The  idea 
is  just  this,  that  no  neutrality  is  possible  nor  any  double 
service.  To  drop  the  one  style  of  moral  action  is  to  adopt 
the  other. 

All  this  is  of  course  perfectly  obvious  so  soon  as  it  is 
stated.  Now,  what  was  the  actual  position  of  the  Eoman 
Christians  with  reference  to  these  two  forms  of  moral 
action  ? 

They  had  been  slaves  of  sin  once.  That  they  knew  only 
too  well.  In  the  habitual  practice  of  pride,  lust,  revelling, 
revenge,  profanity  and  the  like,  members  of  the  Roman 
Church  had  grown  up  to  man's  estate.  Prior  to  their 
conversion,  this  was.  their  mode  of  life,  and  by  experience 
it  had  been  burnt  into  their  convictions  that  such  yielding 
to  illicit  impulses  was  indeed  a  servitude.  What  the 
Apostle's  metaphor  of  a  slave's  lot  signified  did  not  need 


1 86  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

to  be  told.  That  the  Christians  of  Eome  knew  very  well ; 
some  of  them  through  their  own  daily  endurance  of  it. 
It  meant  hard  and  unrequited  and  bitter  toil,  in  which 
there  was  neither  dignity  nor  gladness,  neither  did  it  yield 
those  wholesome  fruits  of  sweet  content  and  self-respect 
which  ought  to  crown  all  honest  labour.  Morally  speak- 
ing, the  same  description  applied  to  their  life  before  con- 
version. It  applies  to  every  life  to-day  that  is  devoted  to 
the  service  of  vicious  pleasure  or  of  secular  gain  or  of 
fashion.  All  pleasing  of  one's  own  ungodly  desires  is  a 
moral  bondage.  It  degrades  the  soul.  In  the  end  it 
repays  its  slave  with  moral  death  for  its  wage.  Paul 
could  appeal  to  the  experience  of  his  correspondents : 
"  What  fruit  had  ye  at  that  time  in  the  things  whereof 
ye  are  now  ashamed  ?  for  the  end  of  those  things  is  death  " 
(verse  21). 

Thank  God,  he  cries,  such  servitude  is  past !  Their 
heathen  life  lay  behind  them,  as  Egypt  lay  behind  fugitive 
Israel  in  the  free  desert.  To  each  member  of  that  early 
Roman  Church  there  had  come  a  day,  when  glad  news 
fi^st  reached  him  of  a  Father's  grace,  cleansing  the  soul 
in  the  blood  of  His  Son.  The  strange  story  was  sweet 
to  hear.  It  fascinated  them.  It  had  in  it  a  certain  un- 
earthly peacefulness  and  purity.  To  the  influence  of  the 
new  teaching  they  one  by  one  yielded  themselves,  heart 
and  soul.  They  took  on  the  "  form  and  pressure  "  of  the 
novel  truth  taught  by  foreign  Jews  about  Jesus  the  Christ 
and  pardon  and  holiness  in  Him.  Since  then  their  very 
being  had  been  running  like  molten  metal  into  a  fresh 
mould,  into  the  mould  of  Jesus  Christ.  They  knew  them- 
selves— their  neighbours  knew  them — to  be  changed  men. 
Paul  himself  had  heard  of  them  that  they  were  slaves  to 
sin  no  more.  In  the  message  of  free  mercy,  forgiving  and 
justifying  the  chief  of  sinners,  these  Romans  had  found  a 


BONDMEN  OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS.  1 87 

power  adequate  to  break  the  bondage  of  evil  habits  and 
quench  the  fire  of  unholy  passion  and  tame  their  pride 
and  check  upon  the  lip  the  accustomed  oath  and  free 
them  from  inbred  forms  of  vice  such  as  used  to  sit  upon 
them  like  a  possession.  Shall  these  men  be  told,  forsooth, 
that  being  justified  by  grace  they  are  free  now  to  sin  if 
they  list  ?  Why,  here  was  the  very  thing  which  grace 
had  done  for  them — to  set  them  free  from  sin,  free  to  be 
holy !  In  liberating  them  from  the  hated  yoke  of  evil, 
had  it  not  by  a  moral  necessity  bound  them  under  the 
counter-rule  of  righteousness  ?  In  Paul's  energetic  lan- 
guage, "  being  made  free  from  sin,  they  were  become 
enslaved  to  righteousness"  (ver.  18). 

The  expression  is  indeed  an  unusually  strong  one,  even 
for  St.  Paul ;  so  strong  that  he  deems  it  well  to  apologise 
for  it  (at  verse  19).  For  while  the  practice  of  sin  is  really 
a  moral  slavery,  as  our  Lord  Himself  taught,*  seeing  that 
it  involves  the  subjugation  of  what  is  noblest  in  a  man 
beneath  some  base  or  petty  desire  of  which  in  his  heart  he 
feels  ashamed,  there  is  no  true  bondage  in  obeying  God. 
On  the  contrary,  the  law  of  righteousness  is  the  law  of 
man's  original  and  proper  nature — his  native  law,  so  to 
speak.  To  follow  it  is  to  act  freely.  For  this  is  after  all 
the  only  conception  we  can  frame  of  freedom  on  the  part 
of  any  creature ;  not  that  the  creature  should  act  without 
control  or  against  rule,  but  that  it  spontaneously  fulfils  the 
law  of  its  own  being,  so  as  to  give  healthful  play  to  what- 
ever is  best  or  highest  in  the  creature's  life.  For  a  man, 
that  means  freely  obeying  the  will  of  God.  Accordingly, 
when  the  Apostle  spoke  above  about  being  a  "  slave  to 
righteousness,"  he  employed  language  which  he  feels  to  be 
harsh,  because,  in  any  strict  sense  of  it,  both  inaccurate 
and  unworthy.     In  order  to  contrast  the  believer's  present 

*  In  St.  John  viii.  40. 


I  88     THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

state  more  vividly  with  his  past  one.  Paul  has  retained  this 
image  of  servitude  in  a  sphere  where  it  is  inappropriate. 
He  has  paralleled  for  a  moment  the  service  of  God  with 
the  service  of  sin,  because  without  some  such  image  it 
would  have  been  difficult  to  render  his  meaning  with  equal 
force.  For,  as  he  explains  in  verse  nineteenth,  it  belongs 
to  our  human  infirmity  that  we  can  never  think  or  speak 
with  perfect  accuracy  about  divine  truth,  simply  because 
our  ideas  reach  us  first  through  material  media  so  that  our 
language  is  coloured  with  metaphor.  When  spiritual  con- 
ceptions have  to  be  draped  in  a  garb  of  material  imagery, 
it  is  inevitable  that  they  share  in  the  imperfection  or  in 
the  clumsiness  of  their  earthly  dress. 

Nevertheless,  St.  Paul  endeavours  to  say  what  he  means 
in  more  precise  and  less  metaphorical  language  (verse  19, 
h.).  What  it  amounts  to  is  this :  That  as  a  man  previous 
to  his  conversion  to  Christ  yielded  up  his  faculties  to 
execute  lawless  desires,  and  thus  did  the  work  of  Lawless- 
ness as  a  slave  serves  his  master,  so,  after  conversion  has 
put  an  end  to  that,  he  must  in  a  similar  way  give  himself 
up  to  perform  the  lawful  or  righteous  will  of  God.  Con- 
version, in  a  word,  means  just  this  change — neither  more 
nor  less.  It  can  be  described  as  an  exchange  of  masters. 
It  involves  setting  a  man  free  from  the  bondage  of  the 
will  to  evil :  and  that  must  imply  that  he  does  good 
instead. 

This,  then,  being  the  state  of  the  case,  it  is  manifestly 
idle  to  speak  of  any  converted  person  as  if  he  were  at 
liberty  to  sin  if  he  likes.  Language  like  that  affords  no 
intelligible  sense,  so  soon  as  one  knows  what  one  is  talking 
about.  It  follows  that  the  difficulty  raised  in  the  fifteenth 
verse  has  no  existence  in  fact.  It  is  really  little  more  than 
a  logical  juggle.  Any  change  which  left  a  man  free  to  sin 
would  in  point  of  fact  be  no  change  at  all ;  no  change  such 


BONDMEN  OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS.  1 89 

as  Christians  intend  by  conversion;  no  such  change  as 
leads  to  salvation  from  sin. 

So  far  of  this  paragraph  purely  as  a  piece  of  argument. 
Before  he  has  done  with  his  digression,  however,  St.  Paul 
enforces  the  practical  bearing  of  all  this  upon  his  corre- 
spondents. He  does  so  by  drawing  an  effective  contrast 
between  the  ultimate  issues  of  life  christian  and  life  un- 
christian. His  correspondents  had  had  some  experience 
of  both.  He  calls  them  to  consider  what  that  experience 
taught  them.  "  What  was  the  fruit,"  he  asks,  "  of  your 
former  life  ?  What  was  the  end  of  it  ?  Of  fruit  it  bore 
none  that  deserved  the  name.  No  honest,  kindly,  whole-- 
some  conduct,  such  as  brought  a  blessing  to  others  or 
satisfaction  to  yourselves  in  the  retrospect.  And,  as  to 
its  end,  that  was  moral  death.  But  your  new  life  in  Christ, 
on  the  contrary :  what  a  blessed  harvest  of  holy  actions 
is  it  bearing  even  now,  crowning  your  days  with  the  active 
and  passive  virtues  of  a  good  character !  Whilst  for  the 
issue  of  it,  have  you  not  a  large  outlook  into  the  never- 
ending  happy  life  to  come  ?  " 

What  these  Romans  had  thus  experienced  is  exactly 
what  every  sincere  Christian  has  found  out  for  himself. 
The  unregenerate  life  is  a  fruitless  one.  By  "  fruit "  in 
Bible  phraseology  we  are  to  understand  such  actions,  or 
such  issues  of  action  in  habit  and  in  character,  as  it  is 
possible  for  a  man  to  look  back  upon  with  satisfaction,  and 
for  his  fellowmen  to  reap  advantage  from,  and  for  his 
Judge  to  commend  at  the  last.  How  bare  of  any  result 
like  this,  the  irreligious  life  must  be,  it  sometimes  takes 
a  long  time  to  find  out.  That  discovery  may  not  come 
till  the  very  end,  when  life  is  as  good  as  over.  Then 
he  who  would  take  stock  of  the  harvest  of  his  years  may 
find  the  gains  he  reckoned  on  to  be  but  illusory — nothing 


I  90    THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

left  of  permanent  worth  to  be  taken  with  him  into  the 
eternal  state. 

Such  waste  is  bad  enough  ;  a  handful  of  chaff  for  one's 
pains.  But  there  is  worse  behind.  He  who  serves  sin 
serves  a  master  that  will  pay  his  wage  for  the  day's  labour. 
A  slow  return,  perchance,  and  a  grim  :  but  sure !  The 
outraged  laws  of  both  physical  and  moral  nature  avenge 
themselves  at  last ;  and  the  end  is  death.  All  sin  wars 
against  well-being.  It  corrupts  more  than  the  blood.  It 
works  like  poison  in  the  soul.  It  kills  by  degrees  the 
taste  for  purity,  the  reverence  for  truth,  the  capacity  for 
faith,  the  power  of  sympathy,  the  sentiment  of  humanity, 
the  faculty  for  the  divine !  So,  when  it  is  finished,  it 
brings  forth  death. 

If  Death  is  the  wage  which  Sin  pays  to  its  servant,  what 
is  the  wage  of  God  ?  Life  ?  Not  so.  St.  Paul  is  fond  of 
a  balanced  sentence,  but  not  at  the  expense  of  truth.  Here 
every  reader  must  have  noticed  how  he  sacrifices  the 
balance  of  a  sentence  which  reads  almost  like  an  epigram 
(ver.  23),  that  for  the  word  "wage,"  he  may  substitute  a 
far  sweeter  and  more  accurate  word,  "  free  gift."  The 
exchange  is  a  reminder  of  a  deep  truth.  When  a  man 
abandons  Sin's  service  to  take  up  that  of  his  natural  Lord, 
God  does  not  set  him  a  task  in  hope  to  win  spiritual  life 
at  the  end  of  it.  No  :  He  makes  the  penitent  an  instant 
gift  of  life.  For  it  is  the  primary  condition  of  all  true 
service  to  be  rendered  to  the  Most  High,  that  His  servant 
shall  be  alive  !  Spiritual  life  therefore  He  bestows  of  His 
grace,  not  as  the  reward  of  obedience  but  as  the  condition 
of  it.  Life  in  the  joy  of  His  favour,  life  by  the  Spirit  of 
His  Son !  Life  which  through  the  faithful  exercise  and 
improvement  of  it  in  the  doing  of  His  will  shall  become, 
as  the  days  pass,  more  abundant  and  fruitful  and  victorious 
for  evermore ! 


(     191     ) 


CHAPTER  XVII. 
''LAW  VERSUS  grace:' 

"  Or  are  ye  ignorant,  brethren  (for  I  speak  to  men  that  know  the  law),  how 
that  the  law  hath  dominion  over  a  man  for  so  long  time  as  he  liveth  ?  For 
the  woman  that  hath  a  husband  is  bound  by  law  to  the  husband  while  he 
liveth  ;  but  if  the  husband  die,  she  is  discharged  from  the  law  of  the  husband. 
So  then  if,  while  the  husband  liveth,  she  be  joined  to  another  man,  she  shall 
be  called  an  adulteress :  but  if  the  husband  die,  she  is  free  from  the  law,  so 
that  she  is  no  adulteress,  though  she  be  joined  to  another  man.  Wherefore, 
my  brethren,  ye  also  were  made  dead  to  the  law  through  the  body  of  Christ  ; 
that  ye  should  be  joined  to  another,  even  to  Him  who  was  raised  from  the 
dead,  that  we  might  bring  forth  fruit  unto  God,  For  when  we  were  in  the 
flesh,  the  sinful  passions,  which  were  through  the  law,  wrought  in  our 
members  to  bring  forth  fruit  unto  death.  But  now  we  have  been  discharged 
from  the  law,  having  died  to  that  wherein  we  were  holden  ;  so  that  we  serve 
in  newness 'of  the  spirit,  and  not  in  oldness  of  the  letter.'' — RoM.  vii.  i-6. 

T^HESE  verses  contain  an  exposition  for  the  theme  or 
text  of  which  one  has  to  look  back  as  far  as  to  the 
fourteenth  verse  of  the  preceding  chapter.  St.  Paul  had 
been  led  at  that  point  to  say,  that  sin  does  not  exert  any 
mastery  over  Christian  men  because  they  are  no  longer 
"  under  the  Law,  but  under  Grace."  This  is  the  statement 
which  he  now  proceeds  to  explain.  Out  of  that  brief 
utterance  some  ten  verses  back  there  spring  such  ques- 
tions as  these :  What  it  is  to  be  '^  under  the  Law  : "  How 
Christians  have  escaped  from  that  position :  Why  the 
Law  failed  to  break  the  dominion  of  sin  :  And  how  their 
new  position  "  under  Grace "  effects  that  result.  To 
these  questions  we  shall  now  find  the  inspired  theologian 
addressing  himself.     What   lies  between,  therefore,   and 


192    THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

was  briefly  dealt  with  in  our  last  chapter,  has  been  simply 
a  parenthesis  or  digression.  It  was  inserted,  as  we  saw, 
to  ward  off  a  possible  abuse  of  his  teaching  as  if  it  favoured 
antinomian  license. 

The  point,  then,  to  be  discussed  in  these  half-dozen  verses 
must  be  kept  steadily  in  view  : — Christians  are  no  longer 
dealt  with  on  the  footing  of  the  Law  of  Moses,  but  on  a 
footing  of  Grace :  one  blessed  result  of  which  has  been  to 
break  the  practical  power  of  sin  over  the  Christian  life. 
It  will  assist  a  clearer  understanding  of  the  course  of 
argument  by  which  this  thesis  is  sustained  if  we  sketch 
it  beforehand  in  brief.     It  is  as  follows : — 

First,  the  Apostle  lays  it  down  as  a  general  principle  that 
nothing  save  death  can  cancel  legal  obligation  or  free  a 
man  from  legal  contracts,  but  that  death  always  does  so. 
This  he  illustrates  by  the  instance  of  the  marriage  con- 
tract. Next,  he  applies  the  axiom  to  the  case  of  Christians. 
Their  legal  death  has  taken  place  through  the  judicial 
crucifixion  of  their  Eepresentative,  and  that  has  cut  them 
loose  from  the  obligations  of  Mosaic  Law.  It  was  quite 
needful  (he  goes  on  to  explain)  that  the  hold  of  legal 
obligations  should  be  thus  broken,  if  ever  we  were  to 
be  saved  from  sin ;  since  the  influence  of  the  Law  over 
human  minds  never  did  in  point  of  fact  lead  to  holy 
action.  On  the  contrary,  it  rather  provoked  the  evil  in 
the  heart  to  greater  activity.  But  when  the  death  of 
Christ  severed  the  hold  of  the  Law  over  men,  it  was  to 
substitute  for  that  sterile  principle  of  legality  one  which 
is  vital  and  fruitful.  In  the  room  of  Law,  what  we  have 
now  to  do  with  is  the  Grace  of  God,  uniting  the  soul  to 
Christ  as  the  source  of  spiritual  power.  Thus  the  Gospel 
has  practically  secured  that  fruitfulness  in  holy  living 
which,  under  the  antiquated  legal  system,  proved  to  be 
quite  unattainable. 


LAW  V.  GRACE.  I  93 

It  is  worth  while  to  follow  this  course  of  thought  in 
detail,  for  it  assists  us  to  understand  a  good  deal  that  is 
quite  characteristic  in  St.  Paul's  way  of  looking  at  the 
Gospel. 

I.  First,  then,  let  me  say  a  few  words  about  St.  Paul's 
maxim  that  it  is  death  which  puts  an  end  to  all  obliga- 
tion created  by  statute-law. 

Expositors  have  often  remarked  how  fond  this  Apostle 
was  of  legal  phraseology,  and  especially  of  illustrations 
borrowed  from  jurisprudence.  His  whole  doctrine  of  justi- 
fication, as  we  have  it  in  the  earlier  portion  of  this  Epistle, 
is  in  fact  cast  in  a  forensic  mould.  The  verses  imme- 
diately preceding  this  chapter  describe  conversion  in 
language  borrowed  from  an  ancient  legal  process  for  the 
manumission  of  slaves.  Elsewhere  we  find  him  illustrating 
the  relation  of  a  Christian  to  God  as  his  Father  by  that 
usage  of  Eoman  law  known  as  the  "  adoption  "  of  a  son. 
In  harmony  with  the  same  obvious  tendency  of  his  mind, 
St.  Paul  is  here  borrowing  a  legal  maxim  to  set  forth  the 
necessity  for  our  Lord's  judicial  death,  and  citing  an 
instance  of  it  from  the  marriage-law  of  the  Hebrews. 

The  maxim  is  this :  Nothing  save  death  can  ordinarily 
cancel  the  binding  obligation  of  civil  law  over  its  subjects ; 
but  death  always  does  so.  It  holds  of  the  validity  of  a 
statute  in  any  civilised  state.  But  it  is  of  the  Law  of 
Moses  Paul  is  thinking;  and  there  the  maxim  held  all 
the  more  that  the  Hebrew  code,  being  of  divine  origin, 
could  never  be  altered  by  any  earthly  legislature,  and 
that  it  pressed  upon  the  conscience  of  the  subject  with  a 
religious  as  well  as  a  civil  obligation.  In  illustration, 
St.  Paul  selects  an  instance  from  the  law  of  contracts. 
Of  all  social  contracts,  the  most  indissoluble  is  wedlock. 
Once  legally  ratified,  that  tie  could  not  be  dissolved,  at 

N 


194     THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

least  on  the  female  side,  except  by  death.  Mosaic  Law 
claimed  the  loyalty  of  a  Jewess  to  her  husband  so  long  as 
they  both  should  live,  all  other  changes  notwithstanding. 
Yet  this  tenacious  hold  of  the  Law,  which  nothing  else 
could  undo,  was  undone  in  an  instant  by  the  touch  of 
Death.  This  hour,  a  second  union  meant  for  the  Hebrew 
wife  a  capital  offence ;  the  next  hour,  it  meant  for  the 
Hebrew  widow  a  lawful,  if  not  laudable,  act. 

What  we  are  clearly  meant  to  gather  from  this  legal 
illustration  is  that  the  decease  of  Jesus  as  the  legal 
Kepresentative  of  His  people  was  necessary  in  order  to 
dissolve  the  claims  over  them  of  the  Divine  Law.  Let  it 
be  remembered  that  the  Law  of  Moses  was  not  solely 
social  or  political,  regulating  such  contracts  as  marriage 
or  the  like.  The  chief  and  central  portion  of  it  was 
ethico-religious,  prescribing  the  conduct  of  each  subject 
towards  his  God.  Between  Israel  and  Jehovah  it  recog- 
nised or  constituted  a  contract.  In  that  great  "  covenant " 
it  held  the  Jew  bound  to  fulfil  his  side ;  and  upon  his 
absolute  or  faultless  obedience,  it  suspended  that  favour 
and  blessing  which  formed  the  divine  side.  From  the 
obligation  of  this  legal  contract  no  Jew  could  procure 
liberation  save  by  death,  any  more  than  the  Hebrew  wife 
from  the  law  of  her  husband. 

But  in  this  its  ethico-religious  aspect  we  must  recog- 
nise in  the  Mosaic  Law  something  more  than  a  merely 
Hebrew  code.  At  the  heart  of  it,  did  it  not  express  in 
word  and  enforce  by  contract  just  that  "common  law" 
of  duty  under  which  every  man  is  born  ?  It  lent  a  formal 
ratification  to  that  tacit  contract  under  which,  by  the  very 
fact  of  our  being  moral  creatures  of  God,  we  have  all  to 
stand — to  which,  in  one  shape  or  another,  every  one's 
conscience  bears  witness.  So  soon  as  any  human  being 
awakes  to  the  consciousness  of  duty,  so  that  he  is  aware 


LAW  V.  GRACE.  1 95 

of  a  divine  imperative  within  his  own  bosom,  he  may  be 
said  to  have  come  under  legal  obligation  to  the  Lawgiver 
and  Judge  of  all  men. 

This  indeed  is  not  the  point  at  which  to  discuss  how 
the  death  of  Jesus  on  the  cross  came  to  be  such  a  death 
as  sets  free  from  the  claims  of  the  Law.  It  is  plain 
enough  that  the  mere  physical  act  of  decease  will  not 
discharge  a  soul  from  responsibility  to  God.  The  physical 
decease  of  a  husband  sets  his  wife  free,  it  is  true ;  but 
that  is  because  the  bond  betwixt  them  is  a  social  contract, 
and  the  tie  it  forms  is  a  tie  of  the  flesh.  There  must  have 
been,  in  the  great  event  which  we  speak  of  as  Christ's 
death,  something  more  than  a  material  dissolution  of  soul 
from  body.  It  has  been  already  explained  in  the  course 
of  the  Apostle's  argument*  how  the  death  of  Christ  came  to 
be  such  as  closed  His  connection  with  sin  by  discharging 
the  claims  of  the  Law  over  Him.  That  therefore  need 
not  be  here  repeated  ;  what  has  now  to  be  emphasised,  is 
simply  the  result  that,  without  such  a  dying  as  amounted 
to  a  "death  to  the  Law,"  there  was  no  possibility,  for 
Him  or  us,  of  getting  clear  of  its  grasp  as  a  contract 
binding  men  to  obedience  under  pain  of  death.  But  His 
death  having  been  previously  shown  to  be  of  such  a 
character,  it  follows  that  He  has  been  discharged,  and 
His  people  along  with  Him,  from  the  legal  condition : 
"  Ye  also  were  made  dead  to  the  Law  through  the  body 
of  Christ." 

II.  This  leads  to  the  next  point  in  the  Apostle's  exposi- 
tion. It  was,  he  contends,  indispensable  that  men  should 
be  thus  loosed  from  the  legal  obligation,  if  ever  they  were 
to  attain  to  real  holiness.  Practically,  what  had  the 
effect  been  of  the  Mosaic  covenant  ?  For  many  a  century 
*  Compare  what  is  said  in  an  earlier  chapter  at  page  168. 


196  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

it  had  been  tried  upon  liuman  nature.  The  delicate 
relations  of  the  soul  with  God  had  been  cast  into  its  iron 
mould  of  statute.  God  had  suspended  His  favours  upon 
compliance  with  written  regulations.  Fear  of  punishment 
in  the  event  of  failure  had  been  permitted  to  enter  the 
soul  and  work  there  what  it  had  power  to  work.  Did  it 
produce  "  fruit  to  God "  ?  Had  the  issue  of  this  union 
betwixt  an  external  commandment  and  human  hearts 
been  a  living  and  spontaneous  virtue?  No  such  thing. 
It  had  done  just  the  opposite. 

Few  men  ever  tried  the  experiment  with  more  sincerity 
or  thoroughness*  than  Paul  himself.  He  had  been  a 
devotee  of  the  Law.  He  had  surrendered  himself  wholly 
to  its  influence.  Playing  upon  the  conjugal  metaphor 
which  he  has  just  employed  in  another  connection,  with 
a  freedom  foreign  to  modern  taste,  he  speaks  of  his  readers 
during  their  unconverted  days  as  "  married  "  to  the  Law.* 
It  had  certainly  been  the  case  with  himself.  Once  it  had 
been  the  animating  principle  of  his  moral  and  religious 
nature.  What  had  the  result  been  ?  Why,  this  :  that  it 
stirred  up  within  him  the  passionate  stirrings  of  sin, 
{jraOrjixaTa^  ver.  5).  Slumbering  impulses  to  evil,  which 
before  lay  dormant  or  unquickened,  were  energised  by  its 
presence.  Among  these  aroused  "  passions  "  I  reckon  the 
blind  craving  after  what  is  forbidden ;  the  zest  which  in- 

*  The  word  "  married  "  used  at  verse  4  by  the  Authorised  Version  has 
been  replaced  in  the  Revised  by  "joined."  No  objection  can  well  be 
taken  to  this  change,  since  nothing  exactly  corresponding  to  either  English 
word  occurs  in  the  original  (ei's  to  yeveadat  vfjids  ire  pep).  At  the  same  time 
the  underlying  metaphor  of  the  conjugal  relation  does  not  depend  on  the 
use  of  a  word.  It  is  hinted  at  plainly  enough  all  through  the  passage. 
The  change  at  the  close  of  verse  4  from  the  second  to  the  first  person 
plural  seems  to  suggest  that  already  his  own  case  has  begun  to  he  present  to 
the  mind  of  the  writer  ;  and  does  in  fact  prepare  for  the  complete  change 
to  the  first  person  singular  which  follows  at  verse  7. 


LAW  V.  GKACE.  I  97 

clulgence  acquires  wlien  it  violates  a  command ;  tlie  native 
hatred  of  all  authority  that  is  too  nakedly  displayed ;  the 
suggestion  of  wrong  through  the  very  words  which  prohibit 
it ;  the  smouldering  of  a  suppressed  fire  of  lust  because  it 
is  denied  vent.  These  and  the  like  workings  of  human 
nature  under  the  influence  of  constraint  were  among  the 
"  fruits"  of  the  Law  in  the  flesh  of  Paul. 

It  is  surely  superfluous  to  add  that  what  makes  Divine 
Law  so  worthless  as  an  instrument  of  discipline  was  not 
its  contents — these  were  "  holy  and  good  " — but  the  form 
in  which  it  came,  of  an  outward  imperative  command, 
claiming  subjection  on  pain  of  the  death-penalty.  It  was 
the  sense  of  being  constrained,  not  from  within  the  will, 
but  by  a  force  without ;  constrained  through  fear  and  not 
inclination;  constrained  by  a  naked  authority  which  is 
unsympathetic  and  unwelcome.  All  this  St.  Paul  sums 
up  after  his  manner  in  a  single  phrase,  when  he  adds 
that  the  old  discarded  system  was  not  "  one  of  the  spirit 
but  of  the  letter."  The  expression  was  familiar  to  his 
thoughts  at  the  time;  because  the  same  contrast  is 
explained  more  at  large  in  a  well-known  passage  of  his 
Second  Letter  to  Corinth,  written  shortly  before  the  date 
of  this  Epistle  to  Rome.*  The  lex  scripta  of  Mosaism 
failed  because  it  was  only  a  lex  scriiota.  It  stood  over 
against  the  fallen  nature  of  man  as  the  bare  utterance  of 
a  stronger  will,  an  imperative  as  cold  and  rigid  as  the 
stone  it  was  graven  upon,  with  nothing  about  it  to 
quicken  inward  affection  or  move  the  deep  springs  of 
spiritual  good  in  the  human  heart.  Coming  in  a  fashion 
like  that,  even  the  lovely  and  perfect  will  of  the  Most 
Blessed  One  became,  to  the  rebellious  instincts  of  His 
creature,  a  provocative  to  disobedience. 

This   records    an   experience   with  which  the  modern 

*  Compare  2  Cor.  iii.  passim. 


198  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAI3L. 

mind  can  perfectly  sympatliise,  because  it  corresponds 
with,  the  facts  of  human  nature  still.  Have  not  we  also 
felt  the  risings  of  self-will  in  proportion  as  we  realised 
the  pressure  of  an  authority  which  we  could  not  but 
respect  and  yet  had  never  learnt  to  love?  And  do  we 
not  know  that  neither  the  religion  nor  the  morality  which 
is  extorted  by  such  a  system  has  the  breath  of  life  in  it  ? 
So  long  as  truth  or  temperance  or  purity  is  only  observed 
outwardly  through  dread  for  the  consequences  of  trans- 
gression, is  not  the  real  inclination  of  one's  heart  apt  to 
take  its  own  revenge  for  such  an  enforced  and  mechanical 
virtue  of  appearances,  by  some  secret  indulgence  or  an 
inward  rebellion  which  is  not  a  whit  better  than  open 
vice  would  be  ? 

Such  constrained  virtue  as  this  lingers  even  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Christian  Church;  since  under  the  most 
evangelical  teaching  people  who  are  not  really  renewed  in 
spirit  may  remain  thorough  legalists.  They  may  do  their 
duty,  not  as  an  outgrowth  of  the  inner  life,  but  as  a 
violence  that  is  put  upon  their  real  inclinations ;  and 
they  may  hope  to  make  themselves  good  at  the  last  by 
working  thus  from  the  outside  inwards,  instead  of  from 
the  inside  outwards.  But  the  goodness  which  can  be 
forced  in  this  way  is  not  living  goodness.  Such  conduct 
as  results  from  the  contact  of  an  external  law  with  an 
unrenewed  will  remains  morally  dead,  and  so  the  union 
is  after  all  a  sterile  one.  Christ  could  render  no  better 
service  than  to  rupture  that  connection  altogether.  He 
could  effect  nothing  worth  calling  "salvation"  till  He 
had  ruptured  it.  It  was  broken  for  the  believer  by  His 
death.  When  the  Law  was  satisfied  for  us  by  His  obedi- 
ence unto  the  cross,  it  was  silenced.  He  is  "  the  end  of 
the  Law  unto  righteousness  to  every  one  that  believeth " 
(Rom.  X.  4). 


LAW  V,  GRACE.  199 

But  this  unfruitful  alliance  betwixt  the  unregenerate 
heart  and  the  outward  Law  of  duty  as  a  condition  of 
divine  favour  is  broken  only  to  be  replaced  by  a  better. 
"  Made  dead  to  the  Law,"  says  St.  Paul,  "  that  ye  should 
be  joined  to  Another,"  or  should  become  Another's.  A 
new  Lord  steps  into  the  vacant  seat  of  moral  control  and 
begins  to  exert  His  quickening  influence  upon  the  moral 
life.  That  Other  is  Christ  Himself,  risen  from  the  dead 
and  reigning  in  virtue  of  the  "  grace  "  He  brings.  If  I 
am  so  joined  to  Him  as  to  be  delivered  from  the  Law 
through  His  death,  then  I  must  be  so  joined  to  Him  as 
also  to  be  animated  by  His  life.  In  the  room  of  the  dead 
letter  of  Moses'  decalogue,  prescribing  duty  to  a  dead  soul, 
Christ  breathes  into  the  man  a  living  Spirit.  His  Spirit 
quickens  love,  and  love  is  the  principle  of  obedience. 
His  Spirit  operates  from  the  centre  of  the  moral  being, 
new-making  us,  right  out  to  the  circumference.  At  the 
centre  He  kills  the  lawless  principle  of  pride,  self-will  or 
rebellious  desire.  He  generates  instead  a  dominant  love 
for  the  will  of  God.  That  love  for  what  pleases  God  proves 
itself  the  parent  of  a  troop  of  happy  impulses,  and  pure 
affections,  and  glad  obediences  to  all  the  holy  and  perfect 
will  of  our  Father  in  heaven. 

The  Gospel,  it  is  plain,  cannot  be  fairly  judged  of  until 
it  has  been  traced  to  the  very  end  of  its  operations.  It 
will  not  do  to  halt  midway  and  raise  the  premature  ob- 
jection against  it  that  it  loosens  the  foundations  of  morality 
by  proclaiming  men  "free  from  the  Law"  of  God.  Wait 
till  you  see  what  follows.  When  the  issue  of  the  whole 
process  has  been  reached,  it  is  found  to  be  profoundly 
ethical.  Its  express  design  is  "  that  the  ordinance  of  the 
Law  might  be  after  all  fulfilled  in  us"  (Eom.  viii.  4) ;  only 
not  by  the  old  method,  but  by  a  new  one.  The  route  is 
changed,  because  the  former  one  had  been  blocked  by 


200    THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

human  sin ;  but  the  end  is  the  same.  God  can  have  but 
one  end  in  all  He  does — a  kingdom  of  saints.  Let  no  one 
then  misunderstand  the  scope  of  the  Gospel  according  to 
St.  Paul  because  it  seems  to  begin  with  a  perilous  and 
retrograde  movement,  cancelling  the  bond  which  was  sup- 
posed to  bind  men  to  their  duty.  If  it  appear  at  first  to 
abrogate  the  Law,  it  is  only  in  order  to  get  the  Law  obeyed 
in  the  end.  If  this  be  a  roundabout  road  to  holiness, 
it  is  at  all  events  the  only  practicable  road  that  is  left 
for  us. 


(       201       ) 


CHAPTER  XYIII. 
A  CHAPTER  IN  SAUL'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

**  What  shall  we  say  then  ?  Is  the  law  sin  ?  God  forbid.  Howbeit,  I  had 
not  known  sin,  except  through  the  law  :  for  I  had  not  known  coveting, 
except  the  law  had  said,  Thou  shalt  not  covet :  but  sin,  finding  occasion, 
wrought  in  me  through  the  commandment  all  manner  of  coveting  :  for  apart 
from  the  law  sin  is  dead.  And  I  was  alive  apart  from  the  law  once  :  but 
when  the  commandment  came,  sin  revived,  and  I  died  ;  and  the  command- 
ment, which  was  unto  life,  this  I  found  to  be  unto  death :  for  sin,  finding 
occasion,  through  the  commandment  beguiled  me,  and  through  it  slew  me. 
So  that  the  law  is  holy,  and  the  commandment  holy,  and  righteous,  and 
good.  Did  then  that  which  is  good  become  death  unto  me  ?  God  forbid. 
But  sin,  that  it  might  be  shown  to  be  sin,  by  working  death  to  me  through 
that  which  is  good  ; — that  through  the  commandment  sin  might  become 
exceeding  sinful."— KoM.  vii.  7-13. 

rrHE  veneration  which  the  Jewish  people  cherish  for  their 
-*-  sacred  Law  has  always  been  one  of  the  honourable 
features  of  their  character.  In  the  modem  synagogue, 
indeed,  this  veneration  approaches  to  a  superstition.  The 
MS.  roll  of  the  "  Torah  "  or  Law  of  Moses  is  there  enshrined 
in  the  holy  place  and  treated  with  every  mark  of  rever- 
ence. Of  this  ancient  Law  of  God,  St.  Paul  has  just  been 
saying  what  sounded  to  Hebrew  ears  both  strange  and 
severe.  Not  only  has  his  argument  led  him  to  press  the 
fact  that  by  trying  to  observe  the  Law  men  never  at- 
tained to  holiness,  nay,  that  the  soul  needs  to  be  quite 
broken  off  from  legal  bonds  if  ever  it  is  to  bring  forth 
fruit  unto  God ;  but  he  has  ventured  to  assert,  on  the 
other  side,  that  the  practical  influence  of  the  Law  had 


202  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

been  positively  hurtful  to  morality.  What  he  said  was 
this  (ver.  5),  that  before  he  and  others  became  Christians, 
the  "  passionate  movements "  of  sin  stirred  up  by  the 
Divine  Law  actually  operated  to  "  bring  forth  fruit  unto 
death."  It  was  a  strong  thing  to  write  to  a  congrega- 
tion which,  though  for  the  most  part  Gentile,  embraced 
many  Jews,  because  it  appeared  to  involve  a  grave  re- 
flection upon  the  morality  of  the  Divine  Law,  a  reflec- 
tion which  would  have  shocked  Paul's  own  sentiments 
quite  as  much  as  those  of  his  readers.  For  his  own  sake, 
therefore,  as  well  as  theirs,  he  hastens  to  explain  him- 
self more  fully.  His  object  is  to  show  precisely  how  it 
is  that  the  Law  of  God,  though  itself  good  and  holy  like 
its  Author,  can  yet  act  in  such  a  way  upon  the  depraved 
nature  of  men  as  to  aggravate  instead  of  curing  their  moral 
disorder. 

He  does  this  by  citing  as  an  instance  his  own  early 
experience.  In  many  respects  Paul  was  a  typical  Jew. 
With  not  more  than  two  or  three  possible  exceptions,  his 
was  as  grand  a  nature  as  that  race  has  ever  yielded.  The 
moral  and  religious  faculties  (by  which  I  mean  chiefly 
longing  after  righteousness  and  power  to  apprehend  the 
Divine)  had  always  been  the  strong  point  of  Hebrew  char- 
acter on  its  best  side,  and  those  were  exceptionally  noble 
and  prominent  in  Paul.  His  training,  too,  had  been  in- 
tensely national  and  of  the  best  sort.  Everything  had 
helped  to  make  him  in  his  youth  a  favourable  specimen  of 
what  the  Mosaic  Law  could  do  in  purifying  or  elevating 
the  character.  If  such  a  man,  so  finely  moulded,  so  deeply 
religious,  so  carefully  reared,  could  declare  that,  after  all, 
the  eflect  of  the  Jewish  Law  on  him  had  been  bad  rather 
than  good,  no  better  proof  could  be  asked  for  the  general 
position  which  he  had  just  laid  down,  startling  as  that 
position  might  sound. 


A  CHAPTER  IN  SAULS  EARLY  LIFE.  203 

Let  us  see,  tlien,  how  this  great  man  lifts  the  veil 
from  his  own  early  experience  of  the  Mosaic  system  as  a 
moral  discipline. 

In  the  first  place,  he  repels  with  energy  the  idea  that 
there  can  be  anything  essentially  bad,  unholy,  or  immoral 
about  the  blessed  Law  of  God  itself.  On  the  contrary, 
but  for  that  Law,  he  could  never  have  reached  any  real 
knowledge  of  sin.  His  words  are :  "  IFhat  shall  ive  say 
then  ?  Is  the  Law  sin  ?  God  forbid  that  I  should  say  that. 
Nay,  hut  I  had  never  known  lohat  sin  is  except  hj  means  of 
the  Law"  This  is  a  very  different  thing  from  making  the 
Law  itself  an  immoral  thing.  Indeed,  it  implies  the 
opposite  of  that ;  because  it  is  only  in  the  light  that  we 
can  see  the  foul.  Only  by  the  Law's  clear  discovery  of 
moral  good  does  it  bring  home  to  us  the  conviction  of 
sin's  sinfulness. 

But  what  does  St.  Paul  mean  by  telling  us  that  he  was 
ignorant  of  sin  save  for  the  Law  ?  Did  he  need,  or  do 
we,  any  such  revelation  from  Heaven  to  make  us  see  that 
sin  is  sin?  Yes,  in  the  deep  sense  in  which  Paul's 
abstract  term  "  Sin  "  is  to  be  understood.  For  though 
certain  sinful  actions  carry  their  natural  condemnation 
with  them,  yet  the  radical  depravity  of  human  nature  out 
of  which  they  flow,  with  its  essential  antipathy  to  God 
and  to  His  will,  is  not,  in  fact,  recognised  by  men  apart 
from  the  Divine  Law.  How  profound  is  the  principle  of 
evil  in  us,  or  how  mighty  its  energy,  or  how  insuper- 
able the  resistance  which  it  offers  to  good,  these  things 
are  not  known  until  the  imperative  of  God  requiring 
inward  holiness  is  pressed  home  upon  the  instructed  con- 
science. 

It  grows  plain  that  this  is  what  St.  Paul  means  by  his 
ignorance  of  sin  apart  from  the  Law  of  Moses,  when 
he  goes  on  to  assign  the  reason  for  it  in  these  words : 


204     THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

*'  I  was  ignorant  of  sin  but  for  the  Law,  for  (he  adds)  / 
should  never  have  Jcnoivn  forbidden  desire  unless  the  Laiu 
had  saidj  TJiou  shalt  not  desire."  Here  St.  Paul  has  put 
his  finger  upon  the  most  characteristic  and  original  of 
all  the  ten  Words  of  the  Decalogue.  The  other  prohibi- 
tions of  that  code  against  image- worship,  against  Sabbath- 
breaking,  against  murder,  theft,  perjury,  and  so  forth, 
might  very  well  have  been  read,  so  far  as  the  mere  words 
went,  as  statutes  of  a  civil  character  intended  to  protect 
society  against  overt  acts  only.  Down  to  this  point  the 
Law  appears  certainly  to  regulate  the  Jew  in  his  outward 
conduct  as  the  citizen  of  a  theocratic  commonwealth  and 
nothing  more.  But  this  tenth  commandment  does  not 
deal  with  overt  act  at  all,  but  with  inward  longing.  It 
transcends,  therefore,  the  function  of  civil  legislation  by 
entering  that  secret  domain  of  each  man's  undivulged 
desires,  where  only  God  is  Witness  and  Judge.  To  do  this 
shows  that  the  Divine  Law  (unlike  that  of  human  legis- 
lators) tracks  the  sinful  habit  back  from  conduct  to 
motive,  or  inwards  from  indulgence  to  the  wish  to  indulge. 
Thus  it  adds  a  new  and  vaster  province  to  the  realm  over 
which  law  presides.  It  discovers  sin  (or  law-breaking) 
to  be  a  deeper-seated  thing  than  we  supposed.  It  makes 
obedience  tenfold  harder  than  before.  Indeed,  the  aspect 
of  every  one  of  the  other  nine  commandments  is  affected 
by  this  tenth  one ;  for  the  important  thing  about  it  is 
not  the  list  of  forbidden  objects  of  desire :  "  Thou  shalt 
not  covet  this,  that,  or  the  other  possession  of  thy  neigh- 
bour." The  important  thing  is  the  prohibition  of  illicit 
desire  itself:  "Thou  shalt  not  covet,"  as  Paul  quotes  it. 
As  it  stands,  it  reads  very  like  a  supplement  to  the  law 
against  theft.  But  if  evil  desire  lie  within  the  cognisance 
of  law  at  all,  then  you  must  interpret  the  other  command- 
ments  likewise  in  a   deeper   sense.      "Thou   shalt  not 


A  CHAPTER  IN  SAUL  S  EARLY  LIFE.  205 

murder  "  must  now  mean — Thou  shalt  not  have  any  wish 
to  murder;  "Commit  no  adultery"  becomes  equivalent  to 
a  prohibition  of  lust,  and  so  on. 

It  was  this  last  command  of  the  ten  which  played  so 
great  a  part  in  the  moral  education  of  Saul  of  Tarsus. 
The  time  was  when  he  lived  "  without  the  Law."  He 
alludes,  I  presume,  to  that  happy  stage  of  immature  life 
when  the  conscience  has  not  yet  begun  to  deal  in  earnest 
with  the  will  of  God,  especially  as  that  will  searches  the 
motives  and  inward  wishes  of  the  heart.  During  child- 
hood, and  sometimes  well  on  into  early  youth,  we  do  not 
realise  God's  Law.  Rules  of  course  we  have  to  guide  us, 
laid  down  by  parent,  nurse,  or  tutor ;  but  these  are  only 
for  the  visible  conduct.  Even  as  a  guide  to  conduct, 
they  exert  but  a  feeble  pressure  upon  the  conscience  so 
long  as  they  are  not  felt  to  reflect  the  higher  law  of  God 
Himself.  During  this  period,  therefore,  one  troubles 
oneself  little  or  not  at  all  about  inward  evil,  if  only  the 
behaviour  approves  itself  to  one's  guardians.  Hence  there 
is  little  or  no  inward  strife.  The  bitterness  of  a  contest 
with  secret  passion  is  scarcely  known.  The  life  is  chiefly 
outward,  and  flows  on  for  the  most  part  in  a  bright, 
energetic,  unreflecting  current.  This,  said  Paul,  as  he 
looked  back  to  his  boyhood  at  Tarsus,  with  its  keen 
animal  spirits  and  comparative  freedom  from  the  agony 
of  a  fight  with  base  desire — this  was  life  indeed.  "  I  was 
alive  "  then : — unconscious  of  spiritual  death,  in  a  childish 
dream  of  innocence. 

Such  a  state  cannot  last.  A  moment  arrives  when  the 
Law  of  God  comes  home  to  the  conscience  with  new 
power.  In  the  case  of  young  Saul  it  was  especially 
that  tenth  commandment  which  came  home.  It  became 
plain  to  him  that  God  forbids  not  merely  doing  wrong, 
but  wishing  wrong.     He  saw  that  to  be  good,  therefore, 


206  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

one  has  to  watcli  the  earliest  budding  of  a  bad  wish 
within  the  heart;  Nay,  that  if  the  bad  wish  bud  there 
at  all,  the  Law  is  already  and  in  that  fact  broken.  Ah  ! 
the  happy  dream-life  was  ended  then.  To  fall  back 
from  the  joyous  world  of  energy  in  which  he  has  thought- 
lessly revelled,  to  another  world  within,  the  dark,  deep, 
bad  world  of  his  own  heart ;  to  be  forced  to  watch, 
criticise,  and  censure  his  own  likes  and  dislikes ;  to 
find  that  out  of  some  miserable  abyss  of  evil  beneath 
the  surface  of  his  soul  unlawful  longings  after  unlawful 
joys  were  for  ever  bubbling  up — longings  which  he  might 
check,  indeed,  from  shaping  themselves  into  act,  but 
which  he  could  not  keep  from  rising  into  consciousness : 
here  was  the  death  of  all  his  peace  and  gladness.  "  Sin 
revived,"  says  he,  with  a  terse  pathos ;  "  sin  awoke  unto 
life,  and  1  died!' 

It  was  not  simply  that  he  had  now  learned  to  "  know 
sin."  There  was  that  in  it,  no  doubt.  Sin  is  not  really 
known  till  the  power  of  illicit  desire  is  experienced. 
What  may  be  termed  the  constitutional  vigour  of  the 
sinful  principle  in  us  cannot  be  judged  of  (especially  in 
well  regulated  society)  by  its  visible  effects  upon  conduct. 
It  betrays  itself  further  back  than  conduct,  in  the  irri- 
pressible  movements  of  the  mind  after  bad,  and  low,  and 
shameful  things.  In  the  bitter  temper,  for  example, 
which  is  suppressed  by  biting  the  lip  ;  or  in  the  lewd  image 
which  haunts  the  shrinking  imagination ;  or  in  the 
envious  wish  to  be  as  happier  men  are  ;  or  in  the  recoil 
from  religious  duty  as  an  irksome  penance ;  or  in  the 
passionate  craving  of  the  will  after  leave  to  do  as  others 
do — drink  with  unbridled  lips  the  gleaming  goblet  of 
delight :  in  things  like  these,  when  they  first  begin 
to  stir  within  the  young  man,  he  does  indeed  learn  to 
know  better  what  sin  means. 

But  that  is  not  all.     The  coming  of  the  tenth  com- 


A  CHAPTER  IN  SAULS  EARLY  LIFE.  20 7 

mandment  to  young  Saul's  conscience  seemed  to  liim 
positively  to  aggravate  bis  sinful  cravings.  The  more 
its  searching  words  kept  ringing  in  his  ear,  "  Thou 
shalt  not  lust  after  any  forbidden  thing,"  and  the 
greater  his  efforts  to  keep  that  law,  so  much  the  worse 
became  his  imprisoned  desires  after  self-indulgence.  It 
was  not  merely  that  he  thought  it  made  him  worse.  It 
was  according  to  human  nature  that  it  should  do  so.  For 
in  the  meeting  of  two  opposites  is  revealed  their  force. 
A  rock  in  the  channel  makes  the  water  chafe.  So  does 
prohibition  lend  zest  to  indulgence,  and  so  it  is  the  Law 
which  is  the  strength  of  sin.*  "  Stolen  waters  are  sweet, 
and  pleasant  is  the  bread  that  must  be  eaten  in  secret."  f 
Take  the  oldest  and  best  example  of  what  one  may  see 
every  day :  "  Yea,  hath  God  said,  Ye  shall  not  eat 
of  every  tree  of  the  garden  ?  "  Yet,  "  the  tree  is  good 
for  food  :  a  tree  to  be  desired  to  make  one  wise.  In  the 
day  ye  eat,  your  eyes  shall  be  opened :  ye  shall  be 
like  God,  knowing  good  and  evil."  Thus  the  serpent, 
"  taking  occasion  by  the  commandment,"  beguiled  our 
mother  Eve  by  his  subtlety ;  J  and  the  old  story  is  always 
repeating  itself  anew.  It  did  so  in  Saul's  experience. 
Sin,  as  a  principle  of  action,  not  now  outside,  but  alas  ! 
deep  in  one's  very  self,  became  Saul's  deceiver.  It 
took  its  opportunity  from  the  divine  prohibition.  It 
held  up  the  forbidden  thing  as  the  more  desirable  be- 
cause it  was  forbidden  :  as  forbidden  just  because  it  was 
so  desirable.  It  stirred  up  slumbering  longings ;  and 
whether  these  were  carried  into  action  or  not,  in  either 
event  that  Law  was  already  broken  which  says,  "  Desire 
not"  Thus  was  the  deceived  soul  betrayed  to  its  death. 
What  an  unexpected  revelation  have  we  here  of  the 

*  Cor.  XV.  56.  +  Prov.  ix.  17. 

+  See  2  Cor,  xi.  3  ;   Gen.  iii. 


208  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

experiences  of  this  young  Pharisee  during  his  early  man- 
hood !  So  far  as  the  world  saw,  the  youth  was  blameless 
enough.  He  tells  us  so  himself.  Writing  to  Philippi,  he 
says,  "  If  any  other  man  thinketh  to  have  confidence  in  the 
flesh,  I  yet  more ; "  *  and  that  not  in  respect  of  privilege 
alone,  but  of  conduct  as  well.  "  Touching  the  righteous- 
ness which  is  in  the  Law,  I  was  found  blameless."  His, 
then,  was  no  case  of  a  stained  or  intemperate  youth  boiling 
over  into  open  excess  through  heat  of  appetite.  Outwardly 
he  was  a  model  of  decorum  and  punctilious  observance, 
reputed  upright  and  grave  beyond  his  years,  a  youth  on 
whom  older  men  like  the  religious  leaders  of  the  time  set 
their  hopes.  Yet  underneath  this  fair  exterior,  what 
mutinous  passions  raged  !  what  uprisings  of  criminal 
desire !  what  longings  after  the  forbidden ! 

The  law  had  failed,  then,  shall  we  say  ?  Instead  of 
quenching  sin  in  Saul's  soul,  it  had  inflamed  it.  Instead 
of  bringing  to  Saul  moral  and  spiritual  life,  it  had  killed 
such  life  as  he  enjoyed  before.  It  had  produced  self-con- 
demnation, inward  strife,  despair,  and  death.  Was  the 
Law  to  blame  for  that  ?  Was  it  all  the  fault  of  this  last 
unlucky  commandment  of  the  ten  ?  No ;  it  was  the  very 
perfection  and  glory  of  the  Decalogue  that  it  contained 
that  tenth  and  most  spiritual  precept.  It  was  just  its 
exceeding  broadness  and  nobleness  which  made  it  impos- 
sible for  unregenerate  Saul  to  keep  it.  The  Law  for  its 
part  is  holy ;  and  that  particular  commandment  too  is  holy 
and  right  and  good.  It  was  no  fault  of  the  Law  that  it 
wrought  in  Saul  lust  and  death ;  but  it  was  the  fault  of 
what  Saul  had  now  learned  to  know  as  SiN.  Not  sins,  but 
Sin :  not  sinfulness  even  as  a  simple  quality  of  the  sinner, 
but  sin  as  a  force,  a  dread  and  mighty  factor  in  the  human 
*  Phil.  iii.  4-6. 


A  CHAPTER  IN  SAULS  EARLY  LIFE.  209 

soul,  which  lies  deep,  deeper  than  desire,  and  proves 
itself  strong,  stronger  than  the  better  will  that  strives 
against  it. 

Was  this,  then,  I  ask  again,  a  failure  of  the  Law's 
design  ?  That  great  w^ord  spoken  by  God  on  Sinai  to  the 
Jews — was  it  intended  to  produce  a  holiness  which  it  has 
plainly  failed  to  produce  ?  Or  has  it  actually  disclosed  a 
kind  and  degree  of  sin  in  man  which  it  was  never  meant 
to  disclose  ?  St.  Paul  could  not  believe  this.  No  Jew  could 
believe  that  the  purpose  of  Jehovah  could  be  at  open  vari- 
ance with  the  facts.  No  reverent  thinker  can  believe  it. 
Rather  we  must  read  the  Almighty's  purpose  in  the 
results.  The  Law  of  Sinai  cannot  have  been  given  in  the 
hope  of  conducting  Israel  or  any  man  to  spiritual  holiness. 
In  so  far  as  it  formed  a  civil  code,  indeed,  it  was  designed 
to  restrain  the  citizens  from  crime  and  from  impiety ;  and 
this  to  some  extent  it  did.  But  when  it  went  beyond  civil 
legislation,  in  virtue  of  that  tenth  commandment  which 
animated  the  rest  with  a  spiritual  sense,  and  asked  obedi- 
ence in  thought  and  wish  and  inward  liking  as  well  as 
the  obedience  of  act;  to  that  extent  it  never  can  have 
contemplated  an  impossible  fulfilment.  What  its  Divine 
Author  did  contemplate  was,  that  it  should  reveal  to  any 
man  who  honestly  tried  to  keep  it  the  hopeless  strength  of  sin 
within  him,  and  the  irreconcilable  resistance  which  that  sin 
offered  to  any  real  or  spiritual  subjection  to  God's  will — any 
holiness  that  is  more  than  skin-deep.  In  His  mercy  He 
meant  men  to  learn  this  bitter,  humbling,  but  most  salutary 
lesson,  that  the  natural  heart  is  "enmity  against  God, 
since  it  is  not  subject  to  the  Law  of  God,  neither  indeed 
can  be  "  (Rom.  viii.  7).  In  the  practical  discovery  of  this 
fact  lay  the  best  preparation  for  the  Gospel  of  God's  grace. 
Here  was  that  experience  which  ripens  a  sinner  to  welcome 
the  gratuitous  grace  of  God  when  it  bringeth  salvation  and 

o 


2  I O  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

the  Spirit  of  God  Who  bringeth  life,  through  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ. 

To  a  large  extent  a  similar  service  is  still  rendered  by 
the  Law  of  God.  What  was  wrought  once  on  a  great 
historical  scale  in  the  experience  of  Israel  as  represented 
by  such  men  as  Paul  has  substantially  to  be  the  experi- 
ence of  most  of  us.  Has  the  Divine  Law  ever  come  home 
to  our  conscience  as  a  spiritual  commandment,  requiring 
our  most  deep  and  hidden  desires  to  be  after  godliness  ? 
Have  we  earnestly  striven  to  keep  that  Law  and  experi- 
enced that  inward  death  of  self-satisfaction  which  en- 
sues when  one  seeks  to  force  holiness  upon  the  feelings 
and  longings  of  the  heart — and  fails  ?  Is  any  man 
wretched  because  he  cannot — do  what  he  may — subordinate 
his  real  inclinations  to  the  will  of  God:  but  must,  the 
more  he  tries  to  do  so,  rise  in  protest  against  that  holy 
will  as  not  his  own  real  vjill  ?  Out  of  that  helpless  misery 
of  a  soul  in  bonds  of  sin  there  is  no  door  of  escape  save 
one.  It  lies  here :  "  The  Law  of  the  Spirit  of  Life  in 
Christ  Jesus  hath  made  me  free  from  the  Law  of  sin  and 
death." 


(       211       ) 


CHAPTER  XIX. 
MORE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY :  DUALISM  IN  THE  LIFE. 

"For  we  know  that  the  law  is  spiritual  :  hut  I  am  carnal,  sold  under  sin. 
For  that  which  I  do  I  know  not  :  for  not  what  I  would,  that  do  I  practise  ; 
but  what  I  hate,  that  I  do.  But  if  what  I  would  not,  that  I  do,  I  consent 
unto  the  law  that  it  is  good.  So  now  it  is  no  more  I  that  do  it,  but  sin  which 
dwelleth  in  me.  For  I  know  that  in  me,  that  is,  in  my  flesh,  dwelleth  no 
good  thing  :  for  to  will  is  present  with  me,  but  to  do  that  which  is  good  is 
not.  For  the  good  which  I  would  I  do  not :  but  the  evil  which  I  would  not, 
that  I  practise.  But  if  what  I  would  not  that  I  do,  it  is  no  more  I  that  do 
it,  but  sin  which  dwelleth  in  me.  I  find  then  the  law,  that,  to  me  who 
would  do  good,  evil  is  present.  For  I  delight  in  the  law  of  God  after  the 
inward  man  :  but  I  see  a  different  law  in  my  members,  warring  against  the 
law  of  my  mind,  and  bringing  me  into  captivity  under  the  law  of  sin  which 
is  in  my  members.  O  wretched  man  that  I  am  !  who  shall  deliver  mc  out  of 
the  body  of  this  death  ?  I  thank  God  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  So 
then  I  myself  with  the  mind  serve  the  law  of  God  ;  but  with  the  flesh  the 
law  of  sin." — Ron.  vii.  14-25. 

rpHIS  chapter  from  the  seventh  verse  onwards  is  probably 
the  most  remarkable  piece  of  autobiography  ever 
written.  As  a  demonstration  in  spiritual  self-anatomy, 
it  has  no  equal,  not  merely  in  the  Bible,  but  in  literature. 
St.  Paul's  rare  experience  as  a  religious  man,  together 
with  his  native  tendency  to  introspection  and  his  skill 
in  subtle  analysis,  admirably  qualified  him  for  such  a 
task. 

The  earlier  portion  of  the  passage  down  to  the  thirteenth 
verse  inclusive  has  presented  no  serious  difficulty.  We 
have  seen  how  it  illustrates  by  the  history  of  Paul's  own 


2  I  2  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

case  at  a  certain  period  of  Ms  life  the  tendency  of  tLe 
Law  to  intensify  rather  than  to  subdue  evil  desire.  Sfc. 
Paul  cites  this  experience  of  his  to  show  how  impossible 
it  was  that  the  Mosaic  Law  could  be  the  instrument  of 
our  salvation  from  sin.  At  the  same  time  he  is  anxious 
to  make  it  clear  that  this  arose  from  no  fault  in  the  Law 
itself.  The  Law  of  God  was  not  a  bad  thing  because 
it  occasioned  such  bad  results.  The  blame  for  these 
bad  results  must  be  charged  home,  not  against  the  Law, 
which  was  holy  and  good,  but  against  the  principle  or 
force  of  Sin  in  fallen  human  nature.  The  principle 
of  Sin  worked  death  in  him  by  means  of  the  good 
Law,  that  its  own  surpassing  sinfulness  might  become 
apparent. 

"We  are  thus  brought  face  to  face  with  this  fact,  that 
between  the  divine  Law  of  duty  and  our  own  sinful  nature 
there  is  a  radical  and  hopeless  antagonism.  That  is  the 
fact  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  whole  situation,  and 
puts  it  utterly  out  of  the  question  for  the  Law  to  save  a 
man.  If  at  the  very  root  of  perverted  human  nature 
there  is  a  repugnance  to  the  divine  will  which  nothing 
can  overcome,  and  which  only  displays  itself  with  greater 
acuteness  when  you  try  to  force  God's  Law  on  men,  then 
it  is  abundantly  clear  that  for  a  state  of  things  so  hopeless 
as  this  no  remedy  can  be  found  inside  of  human  nature 
itself.  There  must  be  some  saving  power  from  without  or 
from  above  mankind. 

This  is  the  great  thought  which  underlies  the  remainder 
of  the  seventh  chapter.  It  leads  up  to  the  glorious  dis- 
covery in  the  next  of  a  divine  Force — a  Spirit  of  Life — to 
do  in  us  what  the  Law  could  not  do. 

When  we  proceed  to  ask  how  this  thought  is  worked 
out  in  the  following  verses  from  the  fourteenth  onwards, 
the  interpretation  of  them  becomes  very  difficult  indeed. 


DUALISM  IN  THE  LIFE.  2  1  3 

The  difficulty  lies  here.  At  verse  fourteen  St.  Paul  drops 
the  past  or  historical  tense  and  commences  to  speak  of 
himself  in  the  present.  It  is  no  longer  "  I  was,"  but  "  I 
am."  This  may  be  understood  in  one  of  two  ways.  Either 
he  is  continuing  his  piece  of  autobiography,  bringing  it 
down  to  his  converted  period  so  as  to  tell  us  his  experience 
of  Law  and  of  sin,  as  a  Christian  man,  at  the  present  date 
of  writing  to  Rome.  This  is  certainly  the  most  natural 
way  to  read  it.  But  on  this  reading  does  not  Paul  speak 
too  strongly  in  some  places  of  the  corruption  remaining 
in  his  regenerate  state  ?  "I  am  carnal :  sold  under  sin  :  " 
what  worse  could  he  say  of  unregenerate  men?  Is  it 
true  of  the  Christian  that  he  can  only  wish  for  a  goodness 
which  he  is  unable  to  attain  ?  Or,  to  avoid  this  difficulty, 
you  may  suppose  that  Paul  is  speaking  in  the  first  person, 
not  to  describe  his  own  Christian  experience,  but  as  a 
representative  of  fallen  mankind  at  large.  He  may  wish 
to  show  in  a  vivid,  dramatic  form,  how  the  fallen  race  at 
its  best  struggles  against  sin,  but  struggles  in  vain  before 
Christ's  help  came,  recognising  in  its  heart  the  law  of  virtue 
and  goodness,  yet  quite  unable  to  overcome  the  power 
of  sin  or  to  realise  the  ideal  after  which  it  secretly  longs. 
Unfortunately  this  rendering  of  the  passage  encounters 
objections  still  more  serious  than  the  other.  How  can 
it  be  fairly  said  of  unregenerate  human  nature  that  it 
delights  in  God's  Law,  or  that  its  sinful  actions  are  no 
more  its  own  doing,  but  the  doing  of  sin  that  dwells  in  it  ? 
How  can  we  on  this  method  explain  the  strong  terms  in 
which  St.  Paul  sums  up  the  whole :  "So  then  with  the 
mind  I  myself  serve  the  Law  of  God"?  Such  words 
will  scarcely  fit  in  to  any  Scriptural  account  of  man's 
fallen  condition. 

So  formidable  are  these  difficulties  on  both  sides  that 
one  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  this  passage  hotly  con- 


2  14  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDIKG  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

tested  between  theologians  of  opposite  schools.  Divines 
who  incline  to  take  as  favourable  a  view  of  original  de- 
pravity as  possible  find  here  the  surviving  love  of  virtue 
^even  in  fallen  man  crying  out  in  its  wretchedness  for  a 
Saviour.  These  prefer  the  latter  interpretation.  Those, 
on  the  other  hand,  who  believe  from  other  texts  that  fallen 
manhood  is  not  the  unwilling  but  the  willing  slave  of 
sin,  and  flatly  opposed  to  God's  spiritual  Law,  contend  as 
stoutly  for  the  former. 

In  a  similar  way  men  when  they  come  to  examine 
these  verses  are  biassed  by  their  opinions  as  to  the  normal 
experience  and  practice  of  Christian  life.  People  who  are 
anxious  to  make  the  most  of  such  a  degree  of  holiness  as 
is  possible  for  a  saint  on  earth  cannot  read  this  passage 
with  comfort  as  a  piece  of  Christian  biography.  Others 
who  fear  to  lend  encouragement  to  an  exaggerated  theory 
of  attainable  "  perfection  "  naturally  use  Paul's  language 
as  their  chief  weapon  against  it. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  is  extremely  difficult  to 
lay  aside  prepossessions  in  order  to  study  the  passage 
candidly,  with  nothing  more  than  a  desire  to  find  in  it 
what  Paul  meant  when  he  wrote,  or  what  the  saints  at 
Rome  would  understand  when  they  read  it.  At  the  same 
time  this  is  what  one  must  try  to  do.  Certainly  I  shall 
not  fight  over  it  any  of  those  controversies  to  which  I  have 
alluded.  My  aim  is  rather  to  forget  them.  Shutting  out 
of  view  every  possible  theological  inference,  let  us  see 
whether  a  careful  reading  of  the  verses  as  they  stand  will 
not  yield  to  us  a  natural  order  of  thought  running  through 
the  passage. 

It  starts,  I  think,  from  the  idea  which  has  been  already 
indicated  as  the  outcome  of  the  preceding  verses.  Sin — 
in  the  sense  of  man's  sinful  nature,  or  "si/i  in  us" — and 
the  Law  of  God  are  opposites.     "  For  we  know  " — it  is  an 


DUALISM  IN  THE  LIFE.  2  1  5 

accepted  truth  amongst  Christians  at  least — "that  the 
Law  of  God  is  spiritual,  whereas  I  for  my  part  am  fleshly 
(or  perhaps  stronger  still,  fleshy) — sold  like  a  bondman 
under  the  power  of  sin."  He  has  been  speaking  bio- 
graphically,  in  the  first  person  ;  and  he  continues  to  speak 
so.  But  in  calling  himself  "  carnal  "  as  opposed  to  spiri- 
tual, Paul  is  describing  nothing  peculiar  to  himself.  That 
is  a  condition  common  to  all  men.  Neither  does  he  re- 
quire now  to  think  of  any  particular  period  in  his  own 
life ;  because  it  is  true  of  fallen  human  nature,  as  one 
generation  derives  it  by  inheritance  from  another,  and 
remains  true  of  it  so  long  as  it  retains  its  native  character, 
that  it  is  "  flesh  " — the  opposite  of  spirit.  The  distinction 
between  the  regenerate  and  unregenerate  states  does  not 
need,  therefore,  to  be  taken  as  yet  into  account.  What 
Paul's  argument  calls  him  to  keep  in  view  is  just  the 
radical  and  inherent  contrast  betwixt  the  Law  on  the  one 
hand,  as  the  utterance  of  its  Spiritual  Author,  requiring 
a  spiritual  obedience  and  the  unspiritual  nature  of  fallen 
man  on  the  other. 

This  is  the  earliest  place  in  this  Epistle  where  these  two 
terms  "  flesh  "  and  "  spirit "  occur  in  clear  contrast,  with 
the  peculiar  ethical  sense  conferred  upon  them  by  our 
author.  In  the  next  chapter  we  shall  find  them  in  con- 
stant use,  as  the  key-words  of  his  argument.  They  bear 
the  same  technical  force  in  other  passages  of  his  writings. 
But  I  can  scarcely  doubt  that  St.  Paul  had  in  his  mind 
the  pregnant  use  of  these  two  great  terms  by  his  Master. 
Although  the  classical  text  for  Christ's  own  employment 
of  them  is  reported  by  St.  John  (whose  Gospel  is,  of  course, 
much  later  in  date),  there  is  nothing  improbable  in  assum- 
ing St.  Paul  to  have  gathered  the  phrase  from  the  evan- 
gelical traditions  which  had  reached  him.  On  one  other 
occasion  at  least,  recorded  by  the  earliest  evangelists,  a 


2  1 6  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

similar  use  of  the  terms  in  an  ethical  sense  had  been 
made  by  our  Lord.* 

At  all  events,  it  is  Jesus  Himself,  in  His  conversation 
with  Nicodemus,  Who  first  employed  the  term  ^'  flesh  "  to 
denote  human  nature  in  its  birth-state,  as  each  individual 
of  the  race  inherits  it  from  his  ancestry.  It  describes, 
therefore,  the  hereditary  nature  of  mankind  as  fallen  from 
fellowship  with  God  and  under  the  power  of  sinful  or  selfish 
impulses.  With  that  ungodly  "  flesh  "  the  Divine  Nature 
itself  forms  the  sharpest  of  moral  contrasts.  ''  God  is 
Spirit : "  and  must  be  worshipped  or  served  in  spirit  by  a 
Spirit-born,  Spirit-led  man — a  son  of  God.  The  flesh-born 
cannot  see  or  know  or  worship  or  love  the  Spirit- God. 
Now,  the  point  of  St.  Paul  here  is,  that  the  Law  of  God 
partakes  of  His  own  nature.  It  too  is  spiritual.  It  reflects 
the  divine  character,  for  it  expresses  the  divine  will.  And 
therefore  between  it  and  the  nature  of  man,  as  man  now  is, 
there  holds  precisely  the  same  incompatibility  which  our 
Lord  affirmed  between  what  is  "  born  of  the  flesh "  and 
what  is  "  born  of  the  Spirit." 

How  does  this  antagonism  between  man's  sinful  flesh 
and  the  Law  of  God  discover  itself? 

In  relating  his  own  early  experience  St.  Paul  had 
already  shown  us  one  way  in  which  it  used  to  discover 
itself.  When  the  Law  first  came  to  him  in  its  spirituality, 
it  provoked  his  "  flesh  "  to  all  manner  of  forbidden  desires. 
It  stirred  up  "  sinful  passions  "  to  work  in  his  "  members  " 
(ver.  5).  But  he  does  not  go  back  now  on  that  evidence  of 
the  repugnance  between  flesh  and  Law.  He  has  begun  to 
speak  in  the  present  tense :  and  in  his  present  state  no 
less  than  in  his  past  he  can  find  evidence  how  contrary 

*  See  the  words  spoken  in  Gethsemane,  preserved  by  St.  Mark 
(xiv.  38)  as  well  as  by  St.  Matthew  (xxvi.  41 )  :  "  The  spirit  Indeed  is  willing, 
but  the  flesh  is  weak." 


DUALISM  IX  THE  LIFE.  2  I  7 

tliese  two  are  the  one  to  the  other.  This  fresh  evidence 
still  lay  ready  to  Paul's  hand  in  the  practical  divergence 
betwixt  his  desires  and  his  performances.  It  is  not  now 
"  concupiscence "  he  complains  of,  a  deep  secret  heart- 
longing  after  forbidding  pleasures  underlying  his  exterior 
morality.  That  he  had  known  once.  By  provoking  to 
such  lustings  after  what  it  forbade,  the  Law  had  then 
revealed  the  opposition  of  the  flesh.  At  that  time  the 
surface  of  the  life  seen  in  conduct  looked  fair :  only  a  wild 
world  of  bad  cravings  raged  underneath.  Now,  the  case 
is  exactly  reversed.  Now,  Paul  longs  after  conformity  to 
the  Law,  but  he  fails  to  give  effect  to  this  new  longing. 
AVhat  he  wishes  to  do  he  does  not  perform  :  what  he  dis- 
likes, that  he  does.  Once,  he  looked  a  cleaner  man  than 
he  really  was  within.  Now,  he  really  is  a  cleaner  man 
than  he  looks  without.  The  difference  is  wide :  the  im- 
provement vast;  yet  at  one  point  the  two  states  agree. 
The  evidence  of  a  nature  antagonistic  to  Law,  and  enslaved 
in  some  sense  to  sin,  remains  as  patent  as  before.  For 
if  a  man  wishes  what  he  cannot  perform  or  performs 
what  he  does  not  truly  wish,  he  is  still  enslaved.  He  is 
carried  along  as  by  an  alien  force.  What  is  that  but  to 
be  still,  in  a  very  sad  sense,  "  carnal,  sold  under  sin  "  ? 

I  do  not  understand  St.  Paul  as  meaning  that  when  he 
wrote  he  experienced  none  at  all  of  those  curbed  and 
evil  lustings  of  which  he  had  made  confession  in  the 
earlier  sentences  of  this  biography.  These  might  or 
might  not  survive ;  but  they  were  not  now  characteristic 
of  his  condition.  They  had  been  the  most  characteristic 
feature  of  that  bygone  phase  of  experience  in  pre-Christian 
days.  Now  his  most  characteristic  feature  is  a  strange 
impotency  to  realise  his  own  good  desires.  Not  merely 
is  the  wish  better  than  the  performance,  but  the  wish 
and  the  performance  are  at  variance :  wishing  not  having 


2  I  8    THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

free  power  to  realise  itself  in  act.  Neither  can  we  press 
tliis  as  meaning  that  he  never  did  anything  good  which 
he  desired  to  do.  The  description,  "What  I  would, 
that  do  I  not,"  makes  no  pretence  to  exhaust  the  entire 
moral  experience  of  the  writer.  Only  it  does  describe 
one  of  his  experiences ;  one  of  the  most  characteristic  and 
singular.  He  never  felt  such  an  impotency  as  that  before. 
For  so  long  as  his  desires  were  evil,  he  found  no  difficulty 
in  fulfilling  them  if  he  tried.  Then  it  was  only  the  Law 
which  forbade  performance :  not  any  hindrance  in  his 
own  nature.  Now,  however,  he  is  in  this  strange  position, 
that  what  the  Law  bids,  his  own  soul  wishes,  consenting  to 
the  Law  that  it  is  good,  yet  very  often  it  does  not  come 
to  pass  in  actual  speech  or  conduct.  On  the  contrary, 
through  some  interposing  force  there  is  the  saddest  incon- 
gruity to  be  observed  betwixt  desire  and  performance. 

At  this  stage,  however,  Paul  finds  it  needful  to  be  a 
little  more  precise.  The  condition  of  a  person  who  de- 
sires one  thing  and  performs  a  different  thing  is  a  very 
abnormal  one.  It  is  a  condition  of  duality.  It  looks  as  if 
there  were  two  persons  confounded  in  one.  Or  the  man 
is  like  a  person  torn  asunder.  St.  Paul  analyses,  therefore, 
and  discriminates.  He  separates  the  true  inward  desires 
of  the  man  which  coincide  with  Divine  Law  from  that 
other  force  which  bars  the  performance  of  good  and  makes 
for  sin.  In  the  former  he  recognises  (ver.  1 7)  the  genuine 
man,  his  truest,  deepest  self  On  the  latter  he  bestows 
this  title :  "  Sin  dwelling  in  me."  It  is  a  singular  phrase, 
for  it  is  meant  to  describe  a  peculiar  and  anomalous  posi- 
tion. It  conveys  this  idea,  that  the  sinful  principle  is 
distinguishable  from  the  real  man,  since  it  does  not  lie  at 
the  root  of  the  man's  personal  life ;  and  yet  that  it  is  not, 
properly  speaking,  a  foreign  force  for  which  he  has  no 
responsibility,  but  after  all  a  part  of  his  complex  nature. 


DUALISM  IN  THE  LIFE.  2  I  9 

It  is  not  lie^  indeed,  in  one  sense,  and  yet  it  is  in  him, 
not  as  a  stranger,  but  as  one  at  home  there,  as  a  native 
inhabitant  of  his  being,  for  which,  as  much  as  for  any 
other  part  of  himself,  he  is  accountable.  The  explanation 
and  justification  of  so  singular  a  phrase  as  this,  "  Sin 
residing  in  me,"  occupies  the  Apostle  in  verses  1 8  to  20  : 
where  he  will  be  found  to  recognise  the  "  flesh  "  or  native 
seat  of  sin's  power  as  still  a  part  of  himself;  for  he  says, 
"  In  me — that  is,  in  my  flesh — no  good  dwells."  In  other 
words,  the  birth-condition  of  humanity  as  affected  by  the 
fall  and  transmitted  by  physical  descent,  has  not  ceased 
entirely  to  be  the  condition  of  St.  Paul.  He  is  still 
"flesh,"  though  no  longer  merely  or  wholly  "flesh."  That 
side  of  his  dual  beiug  remains  the  home  only  of  evil,  not 
of  good.  And  in  the  continuous  coexistence  of  this 
original  nature — seat  of  sin — along  with  his  desire  which 
coincides  with  the  Law,  is  to  be  sought  the  solution  of 
this  singular  phenomenon :  a  man  who  wills  one  thing 
and  does  another. 

After  our  self-anatomist  has  thus  severed  in  idea  the 
two  components  whose  mutually  limiting  action  deter- 
mines his  actual  experience,  he  feels  himself  more  free  to 
refer  to  the  better  side  of  himself  as  his  true  self.  From 
this  point,  therefore,  he  speaks  no  more  of  the  flesh  as 
"me."  But  he  speaks  (ver.  22)  of  the  "inward  man" 
that  has  its  delight  in  the  Divine  Law  as  the  true  man, 
who,  could  he  only  find  unhindered  leave  to  act  out  his 
wishes,  would  do  good,  and  only  good,  continually.  His 
situation  comes,  therefore,  to  be  something  like  this :  The 
deepest  innermost  desires  of  the  man  Paul  are  on  the  side 
of  God's  spiritual  Law.  He  not  only  "  consents  "  to  it 
or  concurs  in  it,  as  good,  but  he  finds  a  sympathetic  satis- 
faction in  its  goodness.  "  I  delight  in  the  Law  of  God." 
It  brings  a  natural  relish  to  his  taste,  like  honey  dropping 


2  20  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

from  the  comb  (to  borrow  a  very  old  figure  for  the  same 
idea).  There  is  not  only  a  Law  of  God  outside  enjoining 
duty,  but  a  "law  of  the  mind"  as  well,  loving  duty. 
This  echo  within  the  man  or  joyful  reaffirmation  of  the 
Divine  Word  by  the  heart  is  accompanied  by  an  impulse 
of  the  nature  tending  to  fulfil  it.  All  this  would  make 
obedience  sweet  and  certain  and  easy,  but  for  one  thing. 
That  is  a  very  different  kind  of  law  *  resident,  not  (so  to 
say)  in  the  innermost,  but  in  the  outermost  region  of  the 
personal  life,  ''  in  the  members  "  or  the  periphery  of  human 
nature,  viewed  as  congenital.  Within  this  circumference 
of  sin  the  "  inward  man  "  lies,  as  it  were,  enveloped,  so 
that  its  activity  is  checked  and  its  tendencies  thwarted 
before  they  reach  actual  performance.  The  good  which 
at  heart  he  desires  to  do  he  cannot  realise.  Nay,  that 
is  not  all,  not  the  worst  of  it.  Active  warfare  goes  on 
betwixt  these  two  contradictory  tendencies  within  the 
man ;  and  the  sinful  tendency  becomes  upon  occasion  the 
assailant.  The  spiritual  will,  coincident  with  the  Divine, 
is  seen  entrenched  inside  the  heart,  holding  the  fort.  Not 
merely  when  it  seeks  peaceably  to  accomplish  its  desires 
is  it  hampered  by  the  disinclination  of  the  flesh.  The 
evil  impulses  are  active.  They  make  war  upon  the  soul. 
Sometimes  they  carry  it  captive  and  hurry  the  man  into 
deeds  of  sin  which  in  his  heart  he  detests. 

In  this  sad  closing  picture  of  his  own  experience  as  to 
the  mutual  relations  of  spiritual  Law  and  sinful  flesh,  even 
after  his  mind  became  reconciled  to  the  Law,  St.  Paul 
has  made  himself  a  mirror  in  which  men  of  earnest  holiness 
and  habits  of  self-scrutiny  have  in  every  age  seen  them- 
selves reflected.  Such  an  internal  dualism — such  a  strife 
of  opposites — such  a  comparative  impotency  to  realise 
the  good   they  purpose,    are   standing  characteristics  of 

*  Verse  23,  'erepov  vd/xov. 


DUALISM  IN  THE  LIFE.  2  2  I 

saintliness  if  we  may  judge  saints  by  their  most  secret 
confessions  and  self- examinations. 

Wlio  that  knows  anything  of  spiritual  life  does  not 
know  by  experience  how  in  every  attempt  one  makes  to 
worship  or  obey  or  keep  pure  and  holy,  evil  is  at  hand, 
"  present  with  us  "  ?  How  it  thrusts  itself  into  our  most 
sacred  moments,  neutralises  our  best  intentions,  surprises 
us  into  a  fault,  or,  overbearing  our  resistance,  drags  the 
reluctant  Christian  into  unchristian  sins  ?  How  often, 
when  the  mind  seems  to  be  bent  wholly  upon  good,  does 
a  casual  spectacle,  or  a  remote  suggestion,  call  up  images 
of  evil !  How  often,  when  no  cause  appears,  do  appetites 
leap  forth  in  unexpected  force,  as  if  they  rose  out  of  some 
abyss  of  impurity  within,  at  the  bidding  of  some  power 
of  darkness !  The  inertia  of  the  flesh  may  reduce,  as 
Jesus  hinted,  the  most  willing  spirit  to  inaction.*  A^ 
a  watchful  foe  strongly  posted  in  a  troublesome  position 
may  neutralise  a  much  stronger  army  which  it  dares  not 
challenge  on  open  ground,  so  this  disinclination  of  fallen 
nature  to  what  is  spiritual  keeps  the  life  of  the  soul  to  some 
extent  inoperative.  The  saint  may  long  after  communion 
with  God  in  holy  meditation  and  prayer :  but  no  sooner 
does  he  set  about  it  in  earnest  than  he  is  made  aware  of 
an  inexplicable  sluggishness,  or  positive  backwardness  to 
every  pious  exercise,  which  at  first  he  hardly  understands, 
and  which  he  can  never  entirely  overcome.  What  is  this 
but  the  power  of  evil  present  with  me  ?  So  always.  It 
starts  up  a  barrier  in  the  path.  It  neutralises  desire. 
It  paralyses  effort.  One's  most  serious  intentions  wither 
sometimes  before  they  ripen  into  act,  as  buds  never  grow 
to  fruit  when  spring  winds  are  keen. 

It  would  be  putting  the  case  far  too  absolutely  to  say 

*  In  the  saying  already  referred  to  in  a  previous  note  :  "  The  spirit  indeed 
is  willing,  but  the  flesh  is  weak." 


2  22  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

that  the  life  of  a  good  man  is  nothing  but  a  contemptible 
series  of  barren  wishes.  A  life  of  nothing  but  good  inten- 
tions would  not  be  a  Christian  life  at  all.  It  is  not  by 
the  blossom,  but  by  the  harvest  that  a  man  will  in  the  end 
have  to  vindicate  his  Christian  profession,  when  the  harvest- 
day  arrives.  Still,  no  man  with  a  Christian  heart  in  him 
ever  satisfies  himself  by  the  measure  of  his  performance. 
He  never  is  as  good  as  he  desires  or  means  to  be.  There 
is  always  a  gap — a  disappointing  and  humbling  gap — 
betwixt  the  ideal  cherished  and  yearned  after  and  the 
actual  behaviour.  So  that  the  most  literal  interpretation 
of  Paul's  passionate  complaint  does  not  seem  too  strong 
to  the  dissatisfied  believer :  "  To  will  is  present  with  me, 
but  to  do  that  which  is  good  is  not"  (ver.  i8).  While 
others  applaud  his  virtue,  a  saint  knows  how  far  his  own 
aspirations  outbid  his  poor  achievement,  and  in  his  closet 
he  lies  groaning  under  the  grief  of  failure.  When  the 
soul  in  her  purer  moments  is  beholding  the  beauty  of 
God's  face  in  Christ,  does  she  not  reach  out  vague  longings 
after  such  a  spiritual  temper  as  she  hath  not  attained  to  ? 
Do  there  not  come  over  her  visions,  divinings  of  a  moral 
sublimity,  a  serene  equipoise  in  goodness,  a  restful  perfect- 
ness  of  will,  never  yet  realised  ?  So  often  as  the  soul  seek 
to  arise  and  possess  that  region  of  pure  heavenliness  which 
seems  her  own,  is  she  not  speedily  aware  that  she  is  chained 
to  a  close  and  heavy  burden  of  earthliness  which  weighs 
her  down  ?  The  flesh  shuts  her  in  ;  and  the  sweet  glimpse 
dies  away,  and  her  feet  stumble  in  the  clay,  and  the  things 
she  would  she  cannot  do. 

Well  for  any  one  of  us  if  we  have  not  cause  to  under- 
stand a  still  more  humbling  confession  than  this.  St.  Paul 
speaks  of  the  "  Law "  in  his  members  as  waging  such 
successful  war  that  it  even  carried  him  off  at  times  into 
captivity,  like  a  prisoner  of  war.     For  the  sinful  principle 


DUALISM  IN  THE  LIFE.  22  3 

which  has  its  seat  in  an  inborn  disposition  makes  sudden 
sallies.  When  a  soul  is  off  its  guard  there  leaps  on  it 
some  gust  of  passion,  and  before  it  can  gather  itself  up 
to  resist,  it  is  swept  forward  by  the  unexpected  pressure 
and  is  lost.  So  anger  overtakes  some,  so  lust  others. 
Let  us  entreat  God  for  a  watchful  temper.  Sad  is  his 
case  who  awakes,  like  Samson  in  Delilah's  lap,  shorn 
both  of  honour  and  of  strength.  Especially  if  through 
neglect  of  fair  precautions,  through  want  of  prayer,  or 
through  rash  exposure  to  temptation,  the  fallen  soul  has 
room  to  upbraid  her  own  folly  as  the  criminal  occasion  of 
her  fall. 

Sometimes,  I  believe.  Christian  men  are  taken  in  no 
surprise.  Sometimes  old  habitual  or  constitutional  sin 
retains  such  force  even  in  believers  that  the  integrity  of 
the  soul  is  vehemently  overborne  by  the  violence  of  its 
bad  desires.  From  such  shocks  a  man  collects  himself 
slowly  and  with  pain.  After  each  overthrow  he  rises 
with  a  sense  of  humiliation  and  a  spiritless  fear  lest  all  be 
lost,  such  as  demoralise  a  routed  army.  The  intactness 
of  his  self-respect  is  broken;  his  power  to  withstand  the 
same  sin  is  sensibly  impaired.  At  such  moments,  chiefly, 
(and  Paul  even  would  seem  to  have  known  such  moments), 
is  this  cry  wrung  from  the  baflled,  well-nigh  despairing 
heart :  "  0  wretched  man  that  I  am  !  who  shall  deliver  me 
out  of  the  body  of  this  death  ?  " 

Like  shipwrecked  sailor  on  his  raft,  this  prince  of 
apostles  looks  all  round  the  sea  of  tumbling  passions 
which  tossed  his  helpless  soul  and  bore  it  whither  he 
would  not — looks  round  for  help  and  lifts  high  his  signal 
and  makes  his  cry  pierce  heaven.  The  answer  comes  on 
the  instant ;  not  from  above,  but  from  within.  Christian 
faith  needs  not  to  be  told  who  shall  deliver.  No  believer 
can  feel  more  than  a  momentary  instinctive  fear  to  fail  or 


224     THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDIXG  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

sink.  On  liis  lips  tlie  cry  of  nature  turns  at  once  into  the 
thanksgiving  of  faith.  He  knows  Whom  he  has  trusted 
to  deliver  him.  He  knows  where  dwells  that  power  which 
he  finds  not  in  himself.  He  knows  by  Whose  Spirit  his 
foes  can  be  scattered,  and  the  sin  subdued  that  resides  in 
him  : — Whose  grace  can  stay  the  tide  of  passion,  lend 
success  to  his  desires  for  holiness,  and  out  of  warfare  such 
as  this  fetch  him  forth  at  last,  spoil-crowned  like  his  con- 
quering Lord,  with  his  feet  upon  the  neck  of  every  lust, 
and  his  will  enthroned  to  perform  without  resistance  the 
good  he  has  loved  and  striven  to  do.  Never  in  his  pre- 
christian  past,  when  the  Law  only  provoked  lust  in  his 
heart,  had  Paul  learned  the  terrific  force  of  "  Sin  dwelling 
in  him"  to  contend  against  the  Law  of  God  as  he  has 
learned  it  now — in  this  fiercer  struggle  after  Christian 
holiness.  But  now  he  can  give  thanks  for  victory  assured. 
On  his  side  there  fights  now  the  divine  strength.  In 
Christ  Jesus  is  a  Spirit  of  life.  What  the  Law  never  could 
do  because  it  was  weak  through  the  flesh,  God  has  done 
in  Christ.  The  Spirit  Whom  we  have  received  in  Christ 
is  the  true  answer  to  every,  ^'  Who  shall  deliver  ?  "  Eoom 
for  despair  there  is  none.  Sweet  will  it  be  to  lay  aside  the 
dinted  armour  of  this  moral  warfare  and  be  no  longer 
harassed  with  environment  of  foes :  to  be  all  good  from 
centre  to  circumference,  and  do,  as  well  as  will,  the  per- 
fect will  of  God :  to  be  white  as  the  light  of  God;  and  sit 
as  victor  over  the  evil  self,  and  rule  one's  subject-nature  in 
the  good  King's  name !  Thanks  be  to  God  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord ! 


(       225       ) 


CHAPTER  XX. 

LIFE  IN  THE  SPIRIT. 

"There  is  therefore  now  no  condemnation  to  them  that  are  in  Christ 
Jesus.  For  the  law  of  the  Sjjirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  made  me  free  from 
the  law  of  sin  and  of  death.  For  what  the  law  could  not  do,  in  that  it  was 
weak  through  the  flesh,  God,  seuding  his  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful 
flesh  and  as  an  offering  for  sin,  condemned  sin  in  the  flesh :  that  the  ordin- 
ance of  the  law  might  be  fulfilled  in  us,  who  walk  not  after  the  flesh,  but 
after  the  spirit.  For  they  that  are  after  the  flesh  do  mind  the  things  of  the 
flesh  ;  but  they  that  are  after  the  spirit  the  things  of  the  spirit.  For  the 
mind  of  the  flesh  is  death  ;  but  the  mind  of  the  s))irit  is  life  and  peace  :  be- 
cause the  mind  of  the  flesh  is  enmity  against  God;  for  it  is  not  subject  to 
the  law  of  God,  neither  indeed  can  it  be  :  and  they  that  are  in  the  flesh  can- 
not please  God.  But  ye  are  not  in  the  flesh,  but  in  the  spirit,  if  so  be  that 
the  Spirit  of  God  dwelleth  in  you.  But  if  any  man  hath  not  the  Spirit  of 
Christ,  he  is  none  of  his.  And  if  Christ  is  in  you,  the  body  is  dead  because 
of  sin  ;  but  the  spirit  is  life  because  of  righteousness.  But  if  the  Spirit  of 
him  that  raised  up  Jesus  from  the  dead  dwelleth  in  you,  he  that  raised  up 
Christ  Jesus  from  the  dead  shall  quicken  also  your  mortal  bodies  through 
his  Spirit  that  dwelleth  in  you." — KoM.  viii.  i-ii. 

"  TF  Holy  Scripture, '  said  Spener,  "  be  a  ring,  then  this 
■^     Epistle  to  the  Eomans  is  the  gem  upon  it ;  and  the 
topmost  point  of  that  gem  is  the  eighth  chapter." 

What  is  there  in  this  chapter  which  makes  it  to  a  devout 
soul  so  exceedingly  precious  ?  The  theme  of  it,  I  think, 
even  more  than  its  wonderful  elevation  of  feeling  and 
eloquence  of  style ;  the  theme  of  it  which  is  the  new  life 
of  a  Christian  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  That  to  be  in  Christ 
Jesus  is  to  have  the  Spirit  dwelling  in  us :  how  the  Spirit 
delivers  us  from  sin  and  quickens  out  of  death  :  how  it 
is  the  spirit  of  freedom  and  of  sonship  to  God  :  how  even 
the  body  and  the  very  creatures  around  are  one  day  to 


2  26     THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

share  in  such  glorious  deliverance  :  how  the  Spirit  helps 
our  prayers  :  and  how  He  knits  us  to  the  victorious  love 
of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  in  such  a  way  that  nothing  in  earth 
or  heaven  can  sever  us  from  that  redeeming,  quickening, 
and  overcoming  love  :  this  is  the  high  theme  of  the  chapter 
we  are  now  to  review.  It  forms  a  consummation  to  the 
Apostle's  foregoing  argument.  It  puts  a  splendid  crown 
on  his  long  vindication  of  that  gospel,  of  which,  even  at 
Eome,  he  felt  no  reason  to  be  ashamed,  since  it  is  the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation. 

In  its  opening  paragraph  this  chapter  carries  forward 
the  argument  of  the  seventh,  and  is  closely  bound  to  it. 
The  net  result  of  the  autobiography  or  self  analysis  which 
St.  Paul  has  just  concluded,  is  this:  There  is  in  fallen 
human  nature  such  a  force  of  sin  resisting  the  Law  of  God 
that  it  is  impossible  for  that  Law,  though  holy  itself,  to 
make  any  man  inwardly  good. 

In  a  much  earlier  portion  of  this  letter,  St.  Paul  exerted 
his  powers  of  argument  to  show  that  by  keeping  the  Law 
no  man  could  attain  to  a  justified  or  acceptable  state  be- 
fore God.  Not  by  deeds  of  law,  was  his  conclusion  then, 
but  by  simple  trust  in  Christ's  atoning  work  for  us,  are  we 
justified  and  have  peace  with  God.  Xow,  for  a  good  while 
back,  he  has  been  demolishing  with  the  same  remorseless 
logic  of  facts  the  sufficiency  of  the  Law  to  sanctify  any 
more  than  to  justify.  It  cannot  break  the  power  of  in- 
dwelling sin,  or  make  us  love  what  God  loves,  or  quench 
the  fires  of  illicit  desire.  Of  that  his  own  lifelong  experi- 
ence, as  a  Jew  first,  and  next  as  a  Christian,  had  convinced 
St.  Paul. 

The  problem  of  human  deliverance  might  therefore  ap- 
pear to  be  insoluble  ;  whether  as  deliverance  from  guilt  or 
as  deliverance  from  sinfulness.  But  just  as  St.  Paul  found 
an  answer  to  it  under  the  former  aspect  in  the  doctrine  of 


LIFE  IN  THE  SPIRIT.  227 

our  justification  by  faith  in  Christ,  so  to  the  problem 
under  its  second  aspect  he  finds  a  solution  in  the  Spirit 
which  they  receive  who  are  Christ's.  It  is  at  this  point 
that  he  proceeds  to  develop  his  solution.  It  is  not  now  the 
problem  which  asks :  How  shall  guilty  man  be  just  with 
God  ?  but  that  which  asks :  How  shall  fallen  man  be 
enabled  to  keep  a  holy  and  spiritual  commandment? 
Of  this  ancient  question,  also,  Paul  had  found  the  answer 
in  the  Gospel.  It  was  this :  What  the  Law  could  not  do 
— since  it  was  rendered  weak  through  the  "  flesh  "  or  here- 
ditary evil  nature  of  men — God  effected  by  sending  His 
own  Son  to  bestow  the  Spirit  of  life  and  holiness.  This 
constitutes  the  second  triumph  of  the  Gospel.  The  first 
was :  It  alone  justifies  the  sinner,  for  it  provides  Christ's 
atonement  for  sin  and  forgiveness  through  faith  in  His 
blood.  The  second  is :  It  alone  sanctifies  the  sinner,  for  it 
brings  into  his  nature  the  quickening  energy  of  the  Divine 
Spirit  to  overcome  the  desire  of  sin  in  the  soul.  Let  us 
only  understand  these  two  perfectly,  and  we  shall  know 
the  Gospel  to  be  "  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation." 

In  the  verses  before  us  three  points  are  touched  on 
regarding  the  Gospel  as  God's  power  to  sanctify.  These 
are  (i)  the  preliminary  work  which  had  to  be  done  by  the 
comiug  of  Christ,  or  the  basis  laid  in  the  life  and  death  of 
our  Lord  with  a  view  to  our  being  sanctified.  Next,  (2) 
wherein  sanctification  really  consists  :  it  is  the  substitution 
of  God's  Spirit  as  a  source  of  moral  influence,  in  lieu  of 
the  congenital  tendency  or  drift  towards  sin  of  our  own 
nature.  And,  (3)  how  this  working  of  the  Divine  Spirit 
in  a  believer  must  issue  in  his  complete  revivification — or 
the  victory  of  life  over  death  both  in  soul  and  body.  In 
other  words,  we  have  to  look  at  the  origin,  the  ^process, 
and  the  issue  of  a  believer's  sanctification  in  Christ. 


2  28  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOKDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

(i.)  Its  origin  in  the  outward  provision  by  whicli  God 
secured  it.  Here  is  St.  Paul's  account :  ^'  God,  sending 
His  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh  and  as  an  offer- 
ing for  sin,  condemned  sin  in  the  flesh  "  (ver.  3). 

A  great  deal  evidently  turns  on  opening  up  the  wealth 
of  meaning  under  this  very  pregnant  and  significant  term 
"  condemned."  The  value  of  our  Blessed  Lord's  incarnation 
and  incarnate  work,  in  so  far  as  it  secured  His  people's 
holiness,  is  all  meant  to  be  described  by  that  term.  Because 
in  Christ,  God  condemned  sin,  therefore  are  they  set  free 
from  it.  The  word  is  selected  here  evidently  because  Paul 
has  already  used  it  in  the  first  verse.  He  said  there : 
"  No  condemnation  for  those  who  are  in  Christ."  Here  he 
says :  In  Christ  was  condemnation  for  sin.  And  he  plainly 
intends  the  one  to  hang  somehow  upon  the  other :  No 
condemnation  for  them,  hecccuse  in  Christ  their  sin  was 
condemned.  What  then  does  condemnation  mean?  It 
means  whatever  sin  would  have  wrought  for  them  of  ruin 
and  death  had  God  let  it  alone.  A  like  ruin  and  death 
He  brought  (so  to  speak)  on  Sin  itself.  The  expression, 
although  a  peculiar  one,  is  therefore  capacious  and  fruitful. 

What  does  it  embrace  ?  For  one  thing,  the  life  and 
death  of  Christ  exposed  sin  in  its  true  evil  and  hatefulness 
by  letting  in  upon  it  the  full  light  of  the  divine  love  and 
goodness:  and  that  was  its  condemnation.  To  expose  a 
bad  thing  is  to  judge  it.  The  light  of  heaven's  own  holy 
and  blessed  charity  shone  in,  when  the  pure  Son  of  God 
lived  or  died  here.  The  bad  heart  of  the  race  was  tested  by 
His  presence,  and  seen  to  be  a  more  hateful,  loathsome,  and 
evil  thing  than  any  one  before  had  imagined  it  to  be.  ^'  If 
I  had  not  come  (said  Jesus)  and  spoken  unto  them,  they 
had  not  had  sin  :  but  now  they  have  no  excuse  for  their  sin. 
He  that  hateth  Me,  hateth  My  Father  also."  ]\Ien's  sin  then 
is  of  this  dye:  it  means  hatred  of  God  Who  is  our  Father. 


LIFE  IN  THE  SPIEIT.  2  2g 

"  If  I  had  not  done  among  them  (He  goes  on)  the  works 
which  none  other  did,  they  had  not  had  sin  :  but  now  have 
they  both  seen  and  hated  both  Me  and  My  Father."  *  God 
condemned  sin  in  the  flesh  first  by  testing  and  exposing  its 
hatefulness. 

Next:  God  made  His  incarnate  Son  the  vicarious 
expiator  of  the  world's  guilt :  and  by  that  sacrifice  of  a 
divine-human  life  in  atonement  for  human  offences,  He 
once  for  all  branded  sin  with  its  righteous  curse;  He 
"  condemned  it  in  the  flesh."  When  His  own  Son  bare 
our  sins  in  His  own  body  to  the  tree  and  suffered  for  us, 
the  righteous  for  the  unrighteous,  surely  this  terrible  re- 
volt of  the  human  will  from  God,  which  had  made  such  a 
vindication  of  Eternal  Justice  necessary,  was  judged  as  it 
deserved.  It  received  its  doom.  God  condemned  our  sin 
in  the  flesh  by  expiating  it  in  death. 

Nor  is  this  all.  The  appearance  of  the  Divine  Son  in 
our  nature  tried  the  power  of  the  sinful  principle  and  dis- 
covered it  to  be  after  all  feebler  than  the  Spirit  of  holiness. 
For  the  career  of  our  Lord  was  one  sustained  encounter 
between  the  sinful  forces  and  the  holy  forces  of  the  world. 
Like  another  Adam,  He  bore  the  onset  of  whatever  could 
tempt  a  holy  human  will  or  seduce  it  from  loyal  affectionate 
obedience  to  God.  He  came  not  only  in  the  flesh — true 
man ;  but  even  in  the  "  likeness  "  of  such  flesh  as  is  sinful. 
That  is  to  say,  He  shared  in  the  outward  consequences  of 
our  fall,  and  was  assimilated  as  far  as  could  be  to  that 
tempted,  suffering,  struggling  kind  of  life  which  has  re- 
sulted from  it.  Under  disadvantages  like  these,  and  amid 
just  such  circumstances  as  surround  other  men,  claiming 
no  exceptional  aid,  declining  no  contest  to  which  we  are 
called,  but  made  in  all  things  like  unto  His  brethren^  He 
fought  out  the  good  fight  of  faith  to  the  bitter  end :  and 
*  See  St.  Jolin  xv.  22-24. 


2  30  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TOST.  PAUL. 

was  not  overcome.  Througli  tlie  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
given  Him  in  His  baptism,  He  took  to  Him  the  whole 
armour  of  God  that  He  might  be  able  to  withstand  in  that 
evil  day,  and  having  done  all,  He  stood — good  Captain  of 
salvation  as  He  was,  true  Man  strong  in  God,  stronger 
than  sin.  So  God  condemned  sin  in  the  flesh — condemned 
it  not  only  as  hateful,  not  only  as  punishable,  but  as  weak 
too,  as  beaten  where  it  triumphed  before :  overcome  even 
in  human  flesh  by  the  Spirit  of  holiness. 

The  practical  result  of  this  judgment  upon  the  sinful 
principle  which  God  wrought  in  His  Son,  lies  here :  that 
within  human  nature  there  is  now  one  point  at  which  sin 
has  been  finally  atoned  for,  vanquished,  and  cast  out.  The 
holy  life  of  God  has  made  good  its  foothold  within  the 
area  of  our  sinful  race.  One  Man  there  is  at  least— One, 
if  no  more  as  yet — Whose  humanity  has  been  liberated 
from  further  contact  with  sin  and  death  and  saved  and 
glorified  for  evermore.  "Now,"  said  that  Man,  "is  the 
judgment  of  this  world !  Now  shall  the  Prince  of  this 
world  be  cast  out ! "  "I  beheld  Satan  as  lightning  fall 
from  Heaven  ! "  It  only  needs  that  the  same  Force  which 
in  the  human  nature  of  Jesus  Christ  proved  itself  mightier 
than  Sin,  should  operate  as  successfully  on  other  men ;  and 
so  it  will  if  only  these  other  men  are  in  Christ  Jesus.  So 
that  we  may  boldly  say :  No  condemnation  is  there  now 
to  men  in  Christ  Jesus,  since  in  Christ  Jesus  God  has 
condemned  sin  in  the  flesh. 

(2.)  From  what  has  now  been  said  it  can  easily  be 
gathered  how,  as  a  matter  of  practical  experience,  each 
of  us  has  to  be  made  holy.  Two  powers  claim  regulative 
influence  over  us.  We  are  the  battle-ground,  or  debate- 
able  land,  of  gigantic  moral  forces.  The  power  that 
makes  for  sin  resides  in  our  own  inherited  nature.  The 
power  that  makes  for  holiness  is  the  Spirit  of  God  Who 


LIFE  IN  THE  SPIRIT.  231 

resides  in  Christ,  and  in  us  too,  if  we  are  one  with  Christ 
by  faith.  Sanctification  therefore  can  only  mean  that  we 
take  care  to  let  the  latter  power  rule  us,  instead  of  the 
former.  We  are  not  told  simply  to  do  the  will  of  the 
Spirit  instead  of  the  will  of  the  llesh,  for  that  is  precisely 
what  we  have  no  power  of  our  own  to  do.  To  tell  us  that, 
would  just  be  to  publish  another  ineffectual  law  in  the 
room  of  the  Law  of  Moses.  No.  What  we  are  told  is  that 
our  whole  nature  is  to  receive  into  it  a  new  power — a 
real  living  force  from  heaven  moving  in  the  line  of  holy 
obedience ;  a  divine,  helpful,  inspiring,  indwelling  Spirit 
Whose  impulses  must  in  the  end  prove  mightier  than  the 
downward  drag  of  our  fallen  hearts.  This  we  are  told, 
and  we  are  to  believe  it.  What  we  are  called  upon  to  do 
in  the  matter  is  to  encourage  and  trust  to  the  action  of 
that  mighty  holy  Power  of  God.  We  are  neither  to  grieve 
Him  nor  resist  Him  nor  quench  Him.  On  the  contrary 
we  are  to  "  mind  His  things  " — as  our  version  has  it : 
that  is  to  .say,  to  study  how  we  may  by  all  means  invite 
and  welcome  and  yield  to  the  action  of  Christ's  Holy 
Spirit  within  us. 

It  is  clear  to  any  one  who  does  not  let  a  one-sided  logic 
run  away  with  his  good  sense,  that  there  is  here  a  real 
though  humble  part  for  a  Christian  man  to  play  in  the 
great  task  of  his  own  sanctification.  It  is  true  the  source 
of  moral  power  is  not  primarily  in  himself:  it  is  in  God 
the  Holy  Ghost.  For  all  that,  the  Holy  Ghost  dwells  in 
us,  not  after  any  mechanical  or  physical  fashion,  but  as 
one  moral  Being  can  reside  in  and  act  upon  another 
moral  being.  At  the  seat  of  our  moral  life  He  operates 
after  the  laws  of  our  nature  and  in  harmony  with  our 
personality  and  free  will.  He  strengthens  good  affections, 
encourages  good  desires,  sustains  good  intentions,  enables 
to  good  performance.     But  all  this  He  does  in  such  ways 


232  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

as  assume  the  concurrence  and  co-operation  of  our  own 
will — not  thwarting  but  earnestly  falling  in  with  the 
divine  power.  Thus  we  are  to  give  all  diligence  to 
make  our  calling  sure,  and  work  out  our  own  salvation, 
just  because  it  is  no  other  than  God  Himself  Who  is 
working  in  us,  both  to  will  and  to  do,  of  His  own  good 
pleasure. 

Paul  cannot,  as  an  earnest  teacher,  touch  on  this  aspect 
of  his  subject  without  hinting  more  than  one  practical 
exhortation  to  his  readers.  For  one  thing,  here  is  the 
genuine  test  of  Christian  faith.  The  Christian  is  a  man 
"in  Christ" — as  Paul  puts  it  at  one  place;  or,  he  is 
"  Christ's  man,"  as  he  puts  it  at  another.  In  other  words, 
the  Christian  has  a  spiritual  connection  with  the  incarnate 
Son  of  God  of  such  a  sort  that  the  same  divine  force 
which  operated  with  perfect  effect  in  making  Jesus  a  holy 
man,  operates  likewise  in  the  Christian  to  make  him  a 
holy  man  like  Jesus.  The  same  Spirit  dwells  and  works 
in  both  Christ  and  the  Christian,  to  substantially  the 
same  result.  If  this  be  not  so  in  point  of  fact  you  are 
"  none  of  His."  No  matter  what  you  believe  or  profess, 
you  cannot  be  a  living  limb  in  that  body  of  the  new 
humanity  whose  Head  (centre  of  moral  life)  is  Christ, 
whose  Spirit  (medium  of  moral  life)  is  the  Holy  Ghost. 
The  test  is  as  easy  as  it  is  practical. 

Not  only  that :  the  Christian  cannot  be  content  to  know 
that  more  or  less  he  has  one  mind  and  one  spirit  with 
his  Master.  He  must  be  ever  seeking  to  have  more.  He 
is  to  devote  to  the  things  of  the  Spirit  the  same  attention 
and  effort  and  study  which  formerly  he  devoted  to  the 
things  of  the  flesh.  He  owes  it  as  a  debt  to  God  and  His 
Christ  that  he  should  earnestly  fall  in  with  that  design 
for  which  God  sent  His  Son.  It  will  be  his  endeavour  to 
"  mortify  "  or  put  to  death  the  deeds  of  the  body  in  order 


LIFE  IN  THE  SPICIT.  233 

to  fulfil  tlie  holy  prescripts  of  the  law.  If  men  whose  life 
is  fleshly  are  found  pursuing  with  two-handed  earnestness 
those  objects  which  the  flesh  desires,  how  ought  we,  if 
we  are  spiritual,  to  follow  after  the  things  of  the  Spirit 
of  God ! 

(3.)  Lastly,  the  blessed  outcome  or  issue  of  this  "walk 
in  the  Spirit"  of  God  is  (to  put  it  in  a  single  word)  life. 
The  wages  of  our  sin  was  death,  but  the  gift  of  our  God 
is  life.  To  bring  out  this  contrast  with  as  much  force  as 
he  may,  Paul  traces  by  easy  steps  how  these  two  moral 
states  develop  of  necessity  their  proper  consequences. 
Take,  first,  the  state  of  unspiritual  and  unchanged  human 
nature,  the  "flesh,"  as  he  terms  it.  We  have  seen  all 
along  how  it  is  characteristic  of  fallen  humanity  that  it 
does  not  submit  itself  to  the  Law  of  God.  Whatever  else 
about  it  may  be  fair  or  hopeful,  whatever  wild-flowers  of 
sweet  kindliness  or  manfulness  it  may  bear,  here  you  touch 
its  radical  defect.  What  other  lesson  emerges  from  Paul's 
self-anatomy  in  the  seventh  chapter  but  this :  that  the 
pressure  of  the  divine  Law  only  provokes  contrary  desire 
in  the  human  heart  ?  Leave  a  man  alone  and  he  may  act 
well  to  please  himself.  Urge  God's  will  upon  him  and 
the  chances  are  he  will  wish  to  do  the  opposite  out  of  con- 
tradictoriness,  or  to  assert  his  independence.  He  is  not 
subject  to  law,  in  fact;  being  what  he  is,  he  cannot  be. 
His  nature  is  essentially  a  rebel.  But  this  insubordina- 
tion to  God  as  moral  Governor  and  Lord,  indicates  enmity. 
It  betrays  a  condition  of  hostility  more  or  less  suppressed, 
more  or  less  avowed ;  still  at  bottom  hostility,  not  peace. 
It  means  that  the  man  is  not  on  good  terms  with  his 
Maker.  He  cannot  love  the  Lawgiver,  since  the  mere 
expression  of  the  Lawgiver's  will  is  enough  to  set  the  man 
up  in  arms  against  it.  Go  deep  enough,  and  you  find 
underlying  all  unregenerate  life  what  Jesus  detected  in 


2  34  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

it :  "  They  have  seen  and  hated  both  Me  and  My  Father." 
God's  law  is  good,  even  a  bad  man  owns  that.  Why  then 
does  he  rebel  against  it  ?  Because  he  dislikes  the  Author  of 
it,  Whose  authority  lies  at  the  back  of  it.  Well :  but  what 
next?  Work  out  this  conception  of  human  nature,  and 
where  will  it  lead  you?  To  death.  To  hate  is  moral 
death.  To  hate  God  above  all  is  death.  To  be  at  war 
with  the  Source  of  one's  true  life  means  to  cut  oneself  off 
from  the  Fountain  of  goodness  and  of  happiness  and  of 
moral  being.  This  is  to  die.  The  fruit  of  insubordinate 
human  nature  can  in  the  end  be  only  this  and  nothing 
else  —  eternal,  spiritual  death  :  whatever  that  entirely 
means,  which  who  can  tell  us  ? 

Take  next,  by  way  of  contrast,  the  new  Christian  state, 
which  believers  owe  to  their  union  with  the  incarnate 
Son  of  God.  The  determining  force  in  the  Christian 
(just  as  it  was  in  Christ)  is  God  the  Holy  Ghost.  He  is 
the  Spirit  of  the  Lawgiver.  So  far  from  being  at  variance 
with  law,  therefore,  the  mind  of  Christ  must  be  the  very 
genius  of  law,  for  it  is  the  mind  of  the  Legislator  Him- 
self. Submission  to  the  will  of  God  is  thus  the  keynote 
of  a  Spirit-ruled  will.  Nor  does  that  mean  in  any  sense 
a  forced  or  a  reluctant  submission.  The  whole  nature 
acquiesces.  If  the  Spirit  of  God  be  the  motive  force  in 
one's  moral  life,  then  the  divine  law  is  sweet  as  honey 
and  precious  as  gold;  for  on  its  side  are  enlisted  the 
deepest  and  most  genuine  likings,  tastes,  and  moral  ap- 
petites of  the  new  nature.  In  a  word,  the  believer  sub- 
mits to  law  because  he  is  at  one  with  its  Author.  His 
mind  becomes  our  mind.  His  Spirit  our  spirit,  and  His 
will  our  will.  The  development  of  this  happy  condition 
reverses  the  fatal  chain  which  we  found  in  the  other  case. 
The  soul  which  cheerfully  submits  to  divine  law  abides 
in  the  peace  of  God.     It  is  moved  to  obey  by  affectionate 


LIFE  IN  THE  SPIRIT.  235 

and  friendly  concord  with  God — in  brief,  by  love.  And 
love  drawing  us  ever  more  and  more  near  to  the  centre, 
within  the  influence  of  the  divine  life,  is  life  for  us. 

It  appears,  then,  that  God's  sending  His  Son  in  the 
flesh  has  introduced  into  our  race  a  new  Divine  Centre 
of  life,  destined  to  penetrate  and  quicken  every  one  who 
is  united  to  it.  How  far  is  this  life  by  the  Spirit  meant 
to  go  ?  As  yet  there  is  but  little  of  it  to  be  seen.  On 
the  face  of  it.  Christian  men  do  not  seem  to  enjoy  any 
more  immunity  from  death  than  other  men.  They  are  as 
weak  as  others  :  take  ill,  grow  old,  suffer  and  pine,  and  die, 
just  like  their  fellows.  St.  Paul  takes  note  of  this  diffi- 
culty at  the  end  of  our  paragraph :  but  he  is  not  discon- 
certed by  it.  The  victory  of  the  Spirit  of  Life  over  dead 
human  nature  is  (he  admits)  a  partial  victory  as  yet.  We 
do  not  see  the  whole  of  it :  we  do  not  even  see  the  most 
conspicuous  portion  of  it.  For  it  has  begun  at  the  centre, 
in  the  secret  heart  of  our  manhood.  It  lies  hid  at  the 
root  of  our  moral  personality,  where  the  bottom  springs 
of  responsible  life  rise.  In  a  word  it  is  the  "  spirit "  of 
the  Christian  that  is  already  quickened.  It  is  so  in  virtue 
of  that  righteousness,  or  submission  to  law,  which  is 
wrought  in  him  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  To  have  a  conse- 
crated heart,  an  obedient  will,  and  a  loving  spirit  means 
to  be  alive  at  the  core  of  our  manhood.  It  is  to  carry 
about  with  us  a  living  spirit  within  the  ribs  of  carnal 
death.  As  yet  this  is  all  the  quickening  we  are  permitted 
to  see  in  Christian  people :  but  it  is  not  all  that  we  are  to 
see.  The  union  of  a  Christian  to  the  man  Christ  is  some- 
how a  union  of  the  entire  unbroken  humanity  of  the  two. 
Body  and  soul  alike  are  brought  into  contact  with  tbe 
quickening  principle.  Sooner  or  later  both  alike  must 
confess  its  influence.  What  the  Divine  Spirit  did  once 
for  the  incarnate  Son  as  a  Man,  was  done  for  His  body  as 


236  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

well  as  for  His  soul.  Both  have  perfect  life  to-day.  And 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  model  to  which  saved  men  are  to  be 
assimilated.  As  He  lives,  so  are  they  to  live  •  quickened 
in  the  spirit ;  quickened,  too,  in  the  mortal  body.  Here 
therefore  is  the  j)ledge  of  a  future  victory  over  death 
which  shall  be  conspicuous  enough  one  day.  Now,  to  be 
sure,  the  body  of  a  Christian  remains  as  good  as  dead 
because  of  the  sin  which  still  lingers  in  his  members.  Yet, 
"  since  it  is  the  Spirit  of  Him  Who  raised  up  Jesus  from 
the  dead  that  dwells  in  you,  He  Who  raised  up  Christ  Jesus 
from  the  dead  shall  quicken  also  your  mortal  bodies  by 
reason  of  the  indwelling  in  you  of  His  Spirit."  Then 
shall  the  victory  be  at  length  complete. 


(  m  ) 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

FROM  PRESENT  LIFE  TO  FUTURE  GLORY. 

"So  then,  brethren,  we  are  debtors,  not  to  the  flesh,  to  live  after  the 
flesh  :  for  if  ye  live  after  the  flesh,  ye  must  die  ;  but  if  by  the  spirit  ye 
mortify  the  deeds  of  the  body,  ye  shall  live.  Tor  as  many  as  are  led  by 
the  Spirit  of  God,  these  are  sons  of  God.  For  ye  received  not  the  spirit  of 
bondage  again  unto  fear  ;  but  ye  received  the  spirit  of  adoption,  whereby  we 
cry,  Abba,  Father.  The  Spirit  himself  beareth  witness  with  our  spirit,  that 
we  are  children  of  God  :  and  if  children,  then  heirs ;  heirs  of  God,  and 
joint-heirs  with  Christ ;  if  so  be  that  we  suffer  with  him,  that  we  may  be 
also  glorified  with  him." — llOM.  viii.  12-17. 

QT.  PAUL  lias  just  touched  (for  the  first  time  since  the 
^  opening  of  his  fifth  chapter)  on  the  hope  which  Chris- 
tians entertain  of  a  glorious  future.  The  completion  of 
the  life-giving  process,  which  begins  in  the  "  spirit "  but 
ends  in  the  "quickening  of  the  body"  (verse  ii),  forms 
a  link  of  connection  binding  the  preceding  discussion  with 
that  splendid  outlook  into  futurity  which,  from  this  verse 
onwards  to  the  close  of  the  chapter,  lends  warmth  and 
colour  to  the  Apostle's  glowing  language.  It  is  at  this 
point  that  he  again  catches  sight  of  the  "  glory  to  be  re- 
vealed;" and  at  the  sight  his  thinking  begins  to  take 
fire.  He  hurries  forward  now  to  the  close  and  consum- 
mation of  his  gospel. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done,  however,  is  to  note  the  in- 
ward union  betwixt  the  present  and  the  future.  Salvation, 
it  is  certain,  cannot  be  adequately  characterised  as  either 
a  present  or  a  future  blessing.  It  is  both  ;  and  it  is  both 
of   them   in   such  vital  connection  that  they  cannot  be 


238    THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

separated.  No  man  dare  hope  to  share  tlie  final  benefits  of 
salvation  who  does  not  commence  by  receiving  an  instal- 
ment of  it  now ;  nor  can  he  possess  the  beginnings  of  sal- 
vation now,  without  being  emboldened  to  anticipate  its 
completion  hereafter.  The  drift  of  these  verses,  accord- 
ingly, is  to  mark  firmly  and  briefly  the  few  swift  steps 
by  which  a  believer  in  Christ  may  pass  from  his  actual 
experience  of  grace  in  this  life  to  a  "  sure  and  certain 
hope  "  of  the  eternal  '^  glory."  In  them,  St.  Paul  has  built 
a  bridge  for  hope  to  travel  by,  that  stretches  betwixt 
earth  and  heaven. 

I.  The  argument  starts  from  that  practical  influence  of 
the  Spirit  of  God  upon  daily  conduct,  with  which  St. 
Paul  has  lately  been  dealing.  This  he  describes  as  being 
"  led  "  by  the  Spirit.  The  phrase  is  a  short  and  easy  one. 
It  accurately  describes  not  simply  the  ideal  of  Christian 
life,  but  even  in  a  fair  degree  its  actual  condition.  For 
the  word  "led"  must  be  admitted  to  suggest  something 
more  than  spiritual  direction  as  of  a  guide  to  duty  who 
may  or  may  not  be  followed.  It  is  true  enough  that  the 
Paraclete  is  given  to  shed  light  on  the  path  of  right  con- 
duct across  the  perplexing  situations  of  life.  But  so  out- 
ward and  formal  a  conception  fails  to  exhaust  the  functions 
of  the  indwelling  Spirit.  The  word  "  led  "  implies  that 
our  Leader  moves  us  along  whither  He  would  have  us  go, 
so  that  we  yield  ourselves  to  His  reasonable  and  righteous 
impulses  {dyovrac^  v.  14).  For  this  is  His  manner  of  lead- 
ing. He  is  the  inspirer  as  well  as  the  suggester  of  conduct. 
He  persuades  and  enables  us  to  walk  in  the  way,  as  well  as 
points  out  where  it  lies.  As  a  patient  conductor  He  waits 
upon  our  tardiness,  until,  by  gentle  pressure  exerted  un- 
perceived  at  the  seat  or  spring  of  action.  He  has  made  us 
willing  to  do  His  will.     Therefore,  His  is  no  leading  at  all 


Fr.OM  PPvESENT  LIFE  TO  FUTURE  GLORY.  239 

unless  it  be  efficacious.  If  we  are  "  led  "  by  the  Spirit, 
that  means  that  to  some  extent  we  are  day  by  day  amend- 
ing our  ways,  exerting  ourselves  successfully  to  do  right 
and  making  substantial  progress  in  virtue. 

Nor  is  it  foreign  even  to -the  word  itself,  far  less  to  the 
nature  of  the  case,  that  I  should  speak  thus  of  a  Christian's 
own  exertion  and  active  progress  in  spiritual  life.  Un- 
questionably, the  world  "  led  "  describes  the  attitude  of 
the  believer  as  in  some  sense  or  to  some  extent  a  passive 
one.  It  means  that  he  lets  himself  be  acted  upon.  He 
submits  to  the  operation  of  a  superhuman  force.  That  is 
true :  and  without  some  such  force  from  above,  it  is  im- 
possible to  see  how  human  beings  are  to  be  led  aright. 
All  the  same  the  phrase  hints  that  a  man  is  not  merely 
passive  under  the  action  of  the  Spirit.  To  be  '^  led  "  is  a 
state  proper  to  a  rational  and  self-determining  creature. 
It  is  not  to  be  pushed  like  a  machine  or  driven  like  dumb 
cattle.  God  acts  upon  us  as  one  moral  Agent  who  is 
mighty  axid  the  source  of  influence,  can  act  upon  another 
moral  agent  who  is  feeble  and  open  to  influence  :  that  is 
to  say,  by  secretly  instigating  or  persuading  the  will  to 
choose  freely  what  is  good.  No  doubt,  this  cannot  be 
said  to  exhaust  the  mysterious  operations  of  the  Spirit  of 
life ;  since  being  our  Maker  and  Re-Maker,  He  has  His 
peculiar  divine  sphere  of  action  behind  conscious  choice, 
among  those  hidden  tendencies,  powers,  and  aptitudes 
which  constitute  human  nature  itself.  Of  this  we  can 
say  little  to  purpose.  But,  so  soon  as  the  life  reveals 
itself  in  consciousness,  it  is  obvious  that  the  Spirit's  lead- 
ing is  so  far  from  shutting  out  the  man's  own  activity  or 
freedom,  that  on  the  contrary  it  implies  it.  It  takes  for 
granted  that  he  follows  where  God  leads,  acts  as  He 
suggests,  and  pushes  forward  along  the  road  to  which  He 
urges.     That  the  Apostle  recognised  this  active  side  of 


240    THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

Christian  experience  is  clear  enough  from  the  hortatory  cast 
into  which  this  first  paragraph  is  thrown  at  its  opening. 
He  tells  the  Romans  how  they  owed  it  to  the  Blessed 
One  Who  stooped  to  be  their  Leader  that  they  should 
"  mortify  the  deeds  of  the  body."  They  were  to  this 
extent  His  ^'  debtors,"  as  he  puts  it.  Since  God  has  in 
His  grace  approached  and  entered  into  man  to  be  His 
guide  to  everlasting  life,  it  is,  so  to  say,  the  least  thing 
man  can  do,  to  give  himself  heartily  up  to  such  celestial 
guidance.  The  practical  issue  in  every  real  Christian 
must  be,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  open  to  observation,  that  his 
conduct  does  move  on  the  whole  along  lines  which  are 
laid  down  by  God  in  His  Word.  Explain  the  mechanism 
how  you  please,  here  at  least  is  the  ascertainable  result. 

II.  On  the  basis  of  this  simple  matter  of  fact,  St.  Paul 
moves  forward  to  the  second  point  in  developing  his 
transition  from  ^'  life  "  to  "  glory."  It  is  this  :  wherever 
you  find  submission  to  divine  guidance,  you  have  evidence 
of  a  divine  birth.  We  have  in  fact  no  other  mark  of  that 
sacred  and  lofty  relationship,  the  noblest  belonging  to  our 
nature,  save  character.  By  practical  acquiescence  in  the 
motions  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  that  is,  by  holy  conduct,  a 
Christian  has  to  make  it  clear  to  himself  and  to  others 
that  he  is  a  "  son  of  God." 

With  such  sober,  homely  and  solemn  teaching  as  this, 
it  is  easy  to  see  how  the  Gospel  erects  a  barrier  against 
devout  delusions  such  as  may  readily  spring  out  of  religious 
enthusiasm.  It  frequently  occurs  that  persons  persuade 
themselves  they  are  the  favourites  or  the  children  of  God 
on  the  ground  of  some  vivid  experience  they  have  under- 
gone which  they  take  to  be  "  conversion,"  or  because  they 
have  been  the  subject  of  a  surprising  vision,  a  bright 
light  beheld  in  prayer,  or  a  sudden  calm  of  mind  which 


FROM  PEESEXT  LIFE  TO  FUTUPtE  GLOllY.        24  I 

tliey  feel  certain  could  only  have  liad  a  heavenly  origin. 
Nothing  can  well  prove  more  perilous  to  character  than  the 
security  which  arises  from  such  a  source.  For  a  man  to 
turn  away  froui  the  severe  moral  test  of  obedience  in  duty 
in  order  to  build  his  confidence  on  emotions,  dreams,  men- 
tal impressions,  or  any  other  non-ethical  evidence  of  piety, 
is  to  desert  the  safe  guidance  of  truth  and  run  grievous 
risk  of  spiritual  shipwreck.  The  shores  of  religious  expe- 
rience are  strewn  thick  with  the  shattered  reputations  of 
men  who  perished  on  this  sunken  rock. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  a  devout  person  is  actually 
walking  closely  in  the  steps  of  Christ,  being  led  by  His 
Spirit  to  maintain  a  godly  and  watchful  temper  in  daily 
behaviour,  there  is  a  certain  internal  witness  to  his  divine 
birth  from  which  he  may  legitimately  take  comfort.  The 
basis  for  any  sound  or  scriptural  confidence  that  one  is  a 
child  of  God  must  always  remain  this — that  one's  conduct 
shows  one  to  be  "  led  by  the  Spirit."  But  if  the  life  be 
thus  obedient  and  holy,  there  are  two  avenues  along  which 
the  believer  may  progress  from  this  starting-point  towards 
a  sober  assurance  of  his  sonship.  He  may  be  able  to 
recall  a  memorable  change  in  his  religious  attitude  to- 
wards God.  Or,  with  no  such  past  revolution  to  assign 
for  its  date  of  origin,  he  may  yet  possess  what  is  still 
better,  a  clear  consciousness  that  the  childlike  attitude  of 
mind  towards  God  is  now  the  prevailing  posture  of  his 
inner  life. 

As  to  the  former  of  these,  St.  Paul  appeals  to  the 
recollection  of  his  Eoman  friends,  if,  when  they  first 
believed  the  Gospel,  they  did  not  experience  an  entire 
alteration  in  their  sentiments  towards  God.  Under  their 
previous  religion,  whether  it  had  been  paganism  or 
Judaism,  the  spirit  of  their  worship  had  been  that  of 
religious  fear.    Its  main  characteristic  had  been  the  absence 


242     THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

of  confidence  as  regards  the  Object  of  worship.  Not  one 
of  those  faiths  from  which  Christianity  drew  its  earliest 
converts  could  impart  a  filial  or  thoroughly  fearless 
tone  over-against  the  dread  and  jealous  Power  above; 
for  this  reason,  that  none  of  them  supplied  any  valid 
method  for  the  reunion  of  the  offender  to  God.  Until 
the  Gospel  came,  every  attempt  to  reach  the  divine 
grace  left  the  suppliant  more  or  less  uneasy  in  his 
conscience.  A  hope  might  be  cherished  that  the  expia- 
tion offered  for  guilt  would  suffice ;  but  of  such  certainty 
on  this  head  as  would  warrant  the  affectionate  confidence 
in  God  which  a  child  reposes  in  his  parent,  there  could 
be  none. 

The  striking  revolution  of  feeling  wrought  by  the  recep- 
tion of  the  Gospel  in  any  conscientious  Jew  or  heathen  of 
the  first  century  was  thus  a  matter  about  which  he  could 
not  well  remain  in  doubt ;  nor  was  it  an  experience  he 
was  likely  to  forget.  Till  his  dying  day  he  must  have 
remembered  how  the  chill  mist  of  religious  uncertainty 
rolled  away  from  his  mind  when  for  the  first  time  he  was 
able  to  look  up  to  Heaven  and  read  no  threats  in  the 
divine  justice  nor  terror  in  the  divine  holiness,  but  met 
only  the  face  of  a  Father  Who  delights  in  His  recovered 
children.  To  this  wonderful  transmutation  St.  Paul  points 
the  first  Christians  of  Eome.  It  was  not,  says  he,  such 
a  spirit  of  bondage  which  you  received  at  your  conver- 
sion, generating  the  same  religious  apprehensions  you 
had  known  too  long.  No ;  it  was  a  very  different  temper 
of  spirit ;  one  which  set  you  for  the  first  time  into  bold 
and  loving  familiarity  with  God,  and  taught  you  to  use  as 
its  native  utterance  the  touching  child-call,  "  Abba !  my 
Father ! " 

How  is  it  with  modern  believers  in  respect  of  this  change 
in  religious  sentiment?     Some,  I  do  not  question,  have 


FROM  PRESENT  LIFE  TO  FUTURE  GLORY.   243 

known  it  in  an  unmistakable  form.  The  inborn  atti- 
tude of  the  human  mind  before  the  Eternal  remains  what 
it  was.  There  must  therefore  be  persons  who  perfectly 
well  remember  contemplating  God  with  precisely  such  a 
mixture  of  mistrust  and  concealed  alarm  as  belonged  to 
pre -christian  religions.  Time  was  when  they  tried  to  hope 
that  God  would  hear  their  prayer  for  mercy,  without  ever 
feeling  at  their  ease ;  when,  in  spite  of  all,  the  bare  idea 
of  the  Almighty  remained  a  troubling  presence,  and  His 
service  a  burden  from  which  it  was  a  relief  to  escape.  If 
that  can  be  recalled  only  as  a  thing  past,  they  will  scarcely 
forget,  any  more  than  a  Eoman  Christian  could,  what  an 
unspeakable  relief  came  on  the  first  discovery  that  Christ 
liad  settled  everything  between  their  conscience  and 
the  Most  High.  It  is  one  of  the  memorable  as  well  as 
happy  crises  in  any  man's  inner  history  when  he  is  able, 
after  being  long  tossed  with  the  fear  of  God's  anger,  to 
clasp  without  misgiving  the  knees  of  the  Divine  Mercy, 
and  falling  prone,  to  babble  forth  with  tears  of  joy  the  first 
simple  accents  of  new-born  faith :  "  My  Father  Who  art 
in  heaven ! " 

On  the  other  hand,  every  one  cannot  recall  any  similar 
change,  or  any  change  similarly  rapid  and  complete.  We 
are  not  born  heathen ;  and  it  may  well  happen  that  the 
Spirit  taught  us  the  sweet  accents  of  spiritual  childship 
almost  as  soon  as  we  learnt  to  name  our  earthly  parents. 
For  us,  therefore,  it  may  be  impossible  to  discriminate 
from  our  present  life  any  darker  past,  which  by  its  contrast 
might  serve  to  make  us  conscious  that  we  are  passed  out 
of  darkness  into  marvellous  light.  Notwithstanding,  the 
other  avenue  I  named  above  is  open  to  us.  When  a  believer 
is  walking  as  closely  as  he  ought  with  God,  there  may  exist 
a  sacred  and  humble  persuasion  that  his  actual  relation- 
ship to  God,  however  it  has  come  about,  is  no  other  than 


244    THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

that  of  son  to  father.  Wherever  such  a  persuasion  as  this 
is  found  within  the  breast,  it  is  a  secret  possession  for  him 
who  has  it.  No  stranger  may  intermeddle  with  it.  Ko 
outsider  can  ever  be  made  aware  of  it.  It  justifies  itself 
only  to  the  soul  in  which  it  dwells.  It  is  the  witness  of 
God  within  the  man  ;  not  the  same  thing  as  an  inference 
of  the  judgment  based  on  the  evidence  of  conduct.  True, 
it  needs  (as  I  said)  to  be  sustained  or  corroborated  by  a 
most  scrupulous  behaviour,  else  what  is  called  the  "  witness 
of  the  Spirit "  may  be  nothing  but  a  self-imposition. 
Still,  where  it  is  genuine,  it  is  simply  a  matter  of  imme- 
diate personal  consciousness.  It  is  the  heart  of  the  son 
becoming  conscious  of  itself  and  of  its  Father  as  united 
in  one  act  of  mutual  trust  and  love.  From  a  heart  so  near 
to  God,  so  open  to  Him,  so  humbly  bold  in  its  access  to 
Him,  so  reverently  affectionate  in  its  embrace  of  Him, 
why  may  not  words  of  childlike  familiarity  well  out  with 
a  happy  unconsciousness  of  their  own  daring?  To  its 
lips  may  there  not  come  without  blame  a  spontaneous  cry 
like  the  "  Abba  !  "  of  Jesus  Himself  ? 

III.  If  on  solid  grounds  a  believer  has  made  sure  Paul's 
second  arch  in  this  brief  bridge  which  spiritual  logic 
builds  from  earth  to  heaven,  then  he  is  prepared  to  go 
on  to  the  third  and  last :  "  If  sons,  then  heirs." 

There  is  no  need  to  institute  any  curious  inquiry  here 
about  either  the  Hebrew  or  the  Eoman  law  of  inheritance, 
as  if  the  Apostle's  argument  turned  upon  such  niceties. 
A  lawful  and  beloved  son  shares  his  father's  estate  all 
the  world  over.  He  who  belongs  to  God's  family  may 
with  safety  leave  the  question  of  his  future  inheritance  in 
the  hands  of  a  parent  who  is  too  generous  and  too  opulent 
to  leave  any  child  without  a  portion. 

But  we  are  not  reduced  to  such  inferences,  safe  though 


FROM  PRESEXT  LIFE  TO  FUTURE  GLORY.        245 

tliey  may  be.  For  the  sonship  of  the  believer  is  one  to 
which  he  attains  through  his  union  with  Christ,  the  ideal 
and  Eternal  Son ;  one,  therefore,  that  is  modelled  on  the 
moral  type  of  that  sonship  and  animated  by  the  spirit  of 
it.  Consequently  his  heirship  must  follow  a  like  analogy. 
Such  a  place  of  dignity  and  bliss  as  crowned  the  obedient 
passion  of  the  subject  Son  of  God  when  He  had  passed 
through  death  to  glory,  such,  in  the  measure  of  our  poor 
capacity,  shall  be  the  place  of  those  whom  He  will  bring 
to  be  with  Him  where  He  is  :  "  Joint-heirs  with  Christ !  " 
The  wonder  is  that  a  hope  so  magnificent  does  not 
dazzle  earthly  eyes.  For  plain  people,  full  of  faults,  who 
in  this  strutting  world  of  little  men  count  for  nothing,  to 
be  gravely  assured  that  their  destiny  is  to  be  associated 
within  a  year  or  two  with  the  present  condition  of  the 
Eternal  Son  of  God,  is  a  prospect  the  unearthly  brilliance 
of  which  might  well  ravish  any  of  us  so  as  to  leave  scarce 
interest  enough  for  present  affairs.  One  might  suppose 
that  such  a  future,  if  a  man  believed  in  it,  must  dwarf  into 
utter  nothingness  the  ambitions  and  losses  of  this  world, 
reconcile  his  patience  to  any  calamity,  and  elevate  his 
mind  quite  above  the  petty  rivalries  and  turmoils  that  vex 
the  days  of  common  men.  Let  a  clear  soul,  sure  of  its 
celestial  parentage,  only  fasten  its  vision  on  the  inheritance 
which  within  so  brief  a  space  is  to  be  its  own,  and  fill 
itself  full  with  the  idea  of  that  approaching  elevation,  with 
its  sacred  delights,  its  superhuman  companionships,  its 
passionless  repose,  its  stainless  purity,  its  ceaseless  and 
saintly  occupations :  surely  such  a  soul  may  be  expected 
at  least  to  draw  into  itself  something  serene  and  godlike, 
a  little  of  the  peace  and  more  than  a  little  of  the  sanctity 
of  heaven ! 


(     246     ) 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

THE  GROANS  OF  CREATION. 

"For  I  reckon  that  the  sufferings  of  this  present  time  are  not  worthy  to 
be  compared  with  the  glory  which  shall  be  revealed  to  us-ward.  For  the 
earnest  expectation  of  the  creation  waiteth  for  the  revealing  of  the  sons  of 
God.  For  the  creation  was  subjected  to  vanity,  not  of  its  own  will,  but 
by  reason  of  him  who  subjected  it,  in  hope  that  the  creation  itself  also  shall 
be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption  into  the  liberty  of  the  glory  of 
the  children  of  God.  For  we  know  that  the  whole  creation  groaneth  and 
travaileth  in  paiu  together  until  now." — RoM.  viii.  18-22. 

TT  was  impossible  for  a  writer  addressing  any  Churcli  in 
-'-  the  Apostolic  period  to  forget  that  the  Christian's  lot 
was  one  of  exceptional  suffering.  The  handful  of  obscure 
men  who  at  that  time  constituted  the  Church  of  Christ  in 
any  of  the  great  towns,  Ephesus,  Corinth,  or  Rome,  had 
to  pay  dear  for  their  faith.  Orthodox  Judaism  hated  them 
and  hounded  on  the  pagan  populace  to  persecute  them. 
Even  the  tolerant  law  of  Rome  could  be  set  in  motion  to 
proscribe  them.  Conversion  to  a  new  faith  must  always 
entail  alienation  from  relatives,  the  contempt  of  society, 
and  a  painful  sense  of  isolation  from  the  traditions  of  the 
past,  as  well  as  from  the  movements  of  the  present.  In 
their  case  it  meant  more.  It  brought  them  bonds,  fines, 
stripes,  and  banishment;  it  brought  rough  handling  from 
fanatical  mobs;  it  brought  now  and  then  the  lions  of  the 
circus,  or  the  headsman's  axe.  It  is,  therefore,  far  from 
surprising  to  find  that  the  Apostolic  letters  are  full  of 


THE  GE,t)ANS  OF  CREATIOX.  247 

encouragements  for  the  endurance  of  earthly  calamity, 
fetched  from  the  anticipation  of  future  bliss.  If  ever  a 
Church  had  need  to  be  saved  hj  Iwpe^  that  one  had.  Its 
eye  required  to  be  bent  steadily  forward  on  a  future  which 
should  repay  for  the  sacrifices  and  pains  of  present  martyr- 
dom. From  a  splendid  recompense,  hidden  as  yet  from 
sight,  it  needed  to  draw  strength  in  its  weakness  and 
fortitude  to  sustain  its  endurance. 

The  coming  compensation  which  St.  Paul  sketched  for 
the  solace  of  his  correspondents  is  one  which  grew  by  a 
natural  necessity  out  of  their  present  faith.  In  them- 
selves they  had  an  invincible  persuasion  that  already  they 
were  sons  of  God.  To  that  dignity  they  had  been  elevated 
through  their  union  with  Christ ;  for  Christ  is  the  Son  of 
God.  The  spirit  of  confidence  and  love  which  they  had 
received  from  God  was  a  filial  spirit.  The  Iloly  Ghost 
within  them  was  witnessing  to  their  adoption  and  teaching 
them  to  cry  "  Abba  !  our  Father !  "  If  that  was  so,  then 
a  day  must  come  when  such  a  hidden  relationship  to 
the  Eternal  should  step  forth  into  light  and  be  openly  ac- 
knowledged. Sons  must  be  heirs ;  and  their  inheritance, 
concealed  for  the  present,  could  not  be  for  ever  concealed. 
If  Christ  was  the  model  on  Whose  Sonship  their  own 
relationship  to  God  was  constructed,  then  His  advance  to 
dignity  and  power  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father  pre- 
figured what  was  in  store  for  them.  It  only  needed  a 
little  waiting  for,  until  spiritual  facts  should  receive  a 
patent  disclosure  and  external  circumstances  be  brought 
into  keeping  with  eternal  truths.  Then  their  real  glory 
as  members  in  the  reconciled  family  of  God  must  appear. 
Then  their  likeness  to  God's  glorified  Son  must  be  made 
both  complete  and  manifest.  Then  their  physical  con- 
stitution, their  surroundings  and  their  mode  of  life  must 
all  be  changed,  from  pain  to  bliss,  from  dishonour  to  glory, 


248    THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

from  groans  to  songs,  from  daily  dying  witli  Christ  to 
eternal  life  with  Him. 

How  great  this  transformation  might  turn  out  to  be, 
which  was  guaranteed  by  their  Christian  consciousness,  who 
could  tell  ?  As  another  Apostle  said,  it  did  not  yet  appear. 
Only  that  the  glory,  when  it  came,  must  immeasurably 
outweigh  whatever  they  had  now  to  endure,  was  absolutely 
certain.  How  much  better  it  might  be,  to  be  at  length 
with  Christ  and  like  Christ,  when  God's  saving  work 
should  have  attained  its  completion,  was  more  than 
could  yet  be  told ;  but  at  least  it  must  be  so  much  better 
than  the  present  as  to  dwarf  present  suffering  in  com- 
parison, and  make  all  the  ills  of  this  life  a  bagatelle,  not 
worth  naming  or  computing.  Weigh  the  short-lived 
affliction  in  a  true  scale  with  that  weight  of  glory :  it  is 
not  worthy  to  be  compared.  *'  So  I  reckon,"  says  Paul : 
I  for  my  part,  as  a  man  who  has  himself  elected,  just  as 
you  have,  the  afflicted,  persecuted,  tormented  condition  of 
a  Christian — nay,  of  a  Christian  missionary. 

It  was,  therefore,  due  to  no  speculative  interest,  but 
for  a  very  practical  and  urgent  purpose,  that  St.  Paul 
set  himself  in  this  passage  to  emphasise  both  the  great- 
ness and  the  certainty  of  the  Christian's  future.  In  doing 
this,  he  betrays  that  splendid  combination  of  lofty  thought 
and  speculation  with  practical  concerns  which  is  charac- 
teristic of  him  as  a  teacher.  To  his  eye,  the  approach- 
ing blessedness  of  a  few  converts  at  Rome  was  no  isolated 
or  accidental  fact.  It  was  part  only  of  a  grand  recon- 
struction of  all  things,  which  should  embrace,  along  with 
redeemed  humanity,  the  very  world  itself  Such  a 
reconstitution  of  the  world  was  the  end-goal  towards 
which  the  profound  designs  of  the  Almighty  had  all 
along  been  tending.  It  was  the  splendid  hope  for  which 
not  the  saints  of  God  alone,  but  even  material  creation 


THE  GROANS  OF  CREATION.        249 

had  long  been  standing,  as  it  were,  on  tiptoe  of  expec- 
tation, straining  weary  eyes  through  many  a  darkened 
age  to  catch  the  dawn  of  coming  day.  It  was  the  world's 
new  birth,  for  which  Nature  itself  seemed  to  him  to  groan 
in  labour-pains.  Like  the  best  of  the  old  prophets  of  his 
nation,  he  kindles  at  this  vision  of  a  golden  age  to  be. 
This  theologian  becomes  the  poet  as  well.  He  sets  himself 
to  interpret  the  voices  which  anticipate  such  a  welcome 
consummation:  the  involuntary,  unconscious  pangs  of  dumb 
creation,  first,  weighed  down  beneath  its  curse  of  incom- 
pleteness and  unprofitableness ;  and  not  that  only,  but 
the  deepest  longing  of  every  Christian  heart,  enveloped 
as  it  is  and  oppressed  with  the  burden  of  the  body 
(ver.  23)  ;  nor  even  that  alone,  but  those  inarticulate 
groanings  also  by  which  God  Himself  Who  dwells  in 
Christian  hearts  utters  in  the  ears  of  God  what  cannot 
be  framed  in  speech — the  craving  of  human  need  after 
a  fellowship  with  God,  a  coming  victory  over  evil,  a 
somewhat  of  spiritual  good,  of  which  we  can  have  only 
vague  premonitions  so  long  as  we  tarry  here  in  the 
shadows  of  earth  (ver.  26).  Nature  waits  groaning  ;  man, 
the  Christian,  waits  groaning;  God  Himself,  the  Spirit, 
groans  within  us.  How  great  must  the  deliverance  be 
which  is  the  common  object  of  this  strange  consent  of 
hope !     It  is  the  liberty  of  the  glory  of  the  sons  of  God. 

In  trying  to  understand  the  several  voices  which  make 
up  such  a  chorus  of  expectation,  we  must  commence  with 
the  dumb  companion  of  our  hope,  the  physical  creation ; 
and  as  that  is  the  least  familiar,  it  will  call  for  the  fuller 
illustration. 

According  to  the  uniform  view  of  Scripture  (with 
which  the  most  thoughtful  literature  of  the  world  agrees), 
man  is  the  head  and  the  interpreter  of  this  whole 
earthly  creation,  to  which  he  so  closely  belongs.     He  is 


2  50     THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

bound  in  intimate  bonds  with  Nature.  As  its  foremost 
and  only  self-conscious  member,  he  has  a  faculty  to  divine 
and  to  utter  (as  it  cannot  do)  both  its  glory  and  its  weak- 
ness, its  beauty  and  its  imperfection.  Looking  forth  upon 
the  unconscious  life  which  clothes  the  earth,  he  finds 
himself  to  be  in  a  strange  mystic  sympathy  with  all  its 
moods.  The  birth  and  the  decay  of  nature-life — the 
dawn  and  twilight  of  the  day — the  voices  of  wind  and 
wave — the  brief  flush  of  glory  in  the  flowering  plant — the 
mute  yearning  after  confidence  and  fellowship  in  the 
brute;  these  things  play  on  the  sensitive  spirit  of  the 
man  who  dwells  with  Nature.  To  him  they  speak.  They 
touch  in  him  answering  chords.  They  connect  them- 
selves with  the  hidden  things  of  his  own  spirit.  They 
breathe  their  meaning  into  his  thoughts  and  find  a  tongue 
within  his  lips.  It  is  the  true  secret  of  all  poetry  and  of 
all  art,  this  profound  oneness  between  man  and  Nature. 
It  is  the  secret  both  of  the  influence  which  Nature  wields 
over  men,  and  of  the  control  which  men  exercise  over 
Nature.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  meanest  flower  that 
blows  can  stir  thoughts  which  lie  too  deep  for  tears.  For 
this  reason,  too,  by  what  Mr.  Ruskin  terms  the  "  pathetic 
fallacy,"  we  read  back  into  Nature  our  own  emotions.  If 
at  one  time  the  poet's  heart  be  jocund  with  the  dancing 
daffodils,  at  another  he  will  see  in  their  "  hasting  away  so 
soon"  a  memento  that  "  we  have  as  short  a  time  to  stay 
as  you."  No  deep  thinker  will  doubt  that  there  is  a 
foundation  for  this  close  sympathy  between  physical  crea- 
tion and  man,  its  intelligent  spiritual  chief.  The  two 
have  been  in  God's  plan  linked  to  one  another.  We  also 
are  in  part  "  of  the  earth,  earthy ; "  and  earth  through  all 
its  parts  is  ordained  to  share  our  mighty  and  checkered 
destiny.  It  darkened  when  man  fell ;  it  is  to  be  renewed 
when  man  is  glorified. 


THE  GROANS  OF  CUEATIOX.  25  I 

By  a  bold  figure  of  poetic  speech,  the  Apostle  personifies 
creation  as  subjected  unwillingly  to  a  yoke  of  "  vanity  " 
and  "  corruption  ; "  yet,  recognising  that  this  is  neither  its 
true  nor  its  final  condition,  he  sees  it  stretching  its  neck 
in  hope  of  a  coming  Deliverer;  he  hears  it  groan  out  its 
yearning  after  a  new  birth  that  is  to  be.  Between  the 
lines  of  this  highly  wrought  imaginative  picture  can  we 
read  anything  w^hich  will  answer  to  the  plain  facts  we 
know?  I  thiuk  we  can.  For  one  thing,  that  part  of 
physical  nature  with  which  man  has  most  to  do  has  un- 
questionably shared  in  the  sad  efiects  of  his  sin.  Take 
the  lot  of  the  domestic  animals.  In  some  respects  these 
have  been  bettered  by  domestication,  but  in  others  they 
have  suffered  frightfully  from  the  tyranny,  neglect,  and 
cruelty  of  their  fallen  lord.  He  wears  out  their  lives  in 
labour.  He  dashes  them  in  the  madness  of  war  against 
his  foes.  He  imprisons  them  to  amuse  his  leisure.  He 
butchers  them  to  feed  his  appetite.  Even  the  creatures 
without  life,  which  were  meant  to  minister  to  our  gentle 
use,  like  the  iron  and  gold  and  jewels,  or  the  wines  and 
fruits  of  the  kindly  earth,  have  been  turned  into  the  menials 
of  our  vices.  We  have  abused  them  from  their  just  service 
to  pamper  lust,  or  deck  the  brow  of  pride,  or  arm  the  hand 
of  violence.  How  hard  a  master  has  Nature  found  in  sinful 
man  !  How  has  its  fair  face  been  defiled,  and  its  happy 
ofispring  made  to  bleed,  and  its  pure  gifts  turned  into 
instruments  of  death  !  With  what  reason  may  this  be  called 
an  involuntary  bondage,  beneath  which  Xature  seems,  as 
it  were,  to  groan  for  some  better  day  to  come,  when  a 
purified  race  shall  enjoy  without  abusing  a  regenerated 
earth  ! 

I  am  not  satisfied,  however,  that  this  participation  of 
Nature  in  the  sad  results  of  the  Fall  exhausts  the  mean- 
ing of  St.  Paul's  words.     Death  and  decay,  vanity  and 


252  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

corruption,  were  in  the  world  before  man.  They  reign  in 
those  parts  of  our  globe  where  human  foot  never  treads ; 
they  would  remain  were  our  race  as  virtuous  as  the  angels. 
Deep  in  the  very  constitution  of  our  present  earth,  and 
continuous  along  its  whole  past  history,  I  think  we  may 
trace  this  subjection  of  all  its  animated  beings  to  a  law  of 
vanity.  For  what  is  vanity  ?  It  is  the  inability  to  realise 
an  ideal  or  perfect  condition;  and  the  inability,  when  it 
has  reached  its  best,  to  stay  there.  Incompleteness  and 
transitoriness  are  the  twin  evils  which  stamp  upon  creation 
an  unsatisfactory  character.  These  twins  are  everywhere 
in  the  world  which  we  know,  and  they  have  been  in  it 
always.  What  has  been  the  progress  of  life  upon  our  globe 
but  a  striving  after  the  unattained?  If  the  theory  of 
organic  development,  which  is  at  present  an  hypothesis, 
should  ever  be  verified,  it  would  only  bring  out  more  clearly 
the  imperfect,  provisional  and  progressive  character  of 
creation,  as  St.  Paul  saw  it.  We  are  in  a  world  which  has 
not  yet  attained,  neither  is  already  perfect,  but  which 
yearns  and  labours  in  the  hope  to  produce  what  shall  bo 
better  than  itself. 

At  any  rate,  it  is  no  hypothesis,  but  a  fact,  that  no 
individual  creature  fulfils  its  idea ;  none  is  flawless,  none 
complete,  none  incapable  of  amendment.  "  Very  good," 
God  called  His  earth ;  and  very  good  it  is,  for  its  purpose 
supremely  fit,  and  in  that  fitness  lovely  beyond  expression. 
But  its  purpose !  what  is  that  ?  To  be  the  nursery 
and  the  school  of  an  imperfect  learner — the  transient 
home  of  a  spiritual  child  on  his  way  to  mature  or 
adult  life.  For  that,  and  no  more  than  that,  man  was 
to  be,  even  had  he  never  fallen,  so  long  as  he  had  not 
been  changed  from  flesh  and  blood  into  incorruption. 
For  such  an  end.  as  that,  this  earth  is  plainly  better 
suited  than  one  inore  ideally  perfect,  and  therefore  more 


THE  GROANS  OF  CREATION.         253 

unchangeable.  What  we  see  in  the  lower  creatures  is  a 
constant  though  unconscious  efifort  after  the  ideal ;  a  con- 
stant failure  to  realise  it;  and  therefore  a  constant  flux 
and  passing  away  of  being,  to  give  place  to  new  forms, 
which  are  in  their  turn  as  transient  as  the  former.  Ofl*- 
spring  succeeds  parent,  to  be  itself  succeeded;  just  as  in 
the  long  past,  species  has  succeeded  to  species.  This  Paul 
calls  "  vanity  ; "  and  I  know  not  what  else  we  can  call  it. 
It  makes  the  phenomena  of  creature-life  unsatisfying,  tem- 
porary, and  deceptive.  When  the  young  thing  comes  into 
being,  it  seems  rich  in  splendid  possibilities ;  but  no 
sooner  is  it  grown  with  effort  to  a  certain  ripeness,  than 
its  strength  begins  insensibly  to  decay.  Each  fresh  spring 
wakes  up  a  jubilant  life  and  puts  on  a  raiment  of  love- 
liness, and  all  things  quiver  as  with  an  old  hope  revived. 
But  the  year  disowns  the  promise  of  its  opening.  Its 
leaves,  how  soon  are  they  dashed  with  storm ! — its  fruit, 
how  far  is  it  behind  the  blossom  !  Disappointed,  defeated, 
it  takes  refnge  from  its  own  weariness  beneath  the  snows. 
So  the  days  circle  and  the  seasons ;  and,  in  spite  of  very 
much  that  is  exquisite  and  delightful,  the  end-result 
comes  always  to  be  "  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit." 

Let  those  say  who  know  best  the  world's  best  literature, 
if  the  thinkers  and  seers  of  all  ages,  its  poets  especially, 
have  not  been  aware  of  this  under-tone  of  sadness  or  dis- 
satisfaction marring  the  gay  moods  of  Nature  and  running 
through  her  merriest  songs.  Why  do  idle  tears  spring  to 
eyes  that  look  on  autumn  fields  ?  Why  are  our  sweetest 
songs  those  which  tell  of  saddest  thought  ?  Why  do  we 
all  say  the  waves  moan,  and  the  winds  sigh,  and  the  clouds 
weep  ?  Are  we  not  involuntarily  interpreting  to  ourselves 
that  mysterious  pain  of  unquiet  endeavour  and  destiny 
unaccomplished  which  makes  Nature  herself  a  fit  comrade 
for  the  perishing  generations  of  mankind,  and  gives  to  the 


2  54  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

physical  and  material  world  a  little  of  the  same  pathos 
which  clings  to  the  present  life  of  man  ? 

If  there  is  any  explanation  possible  which  can  lighten 
this  puzzling  fact  of  universal  bondage  to  corruption  in 
the  works  of  God,  it  lies,  I  think,  in  the  language  of  my 
text.  St.  Paul  implies  that  this  is  not  what  Nature  was 
destined  for.  It  is,  in  a  sense,  an  "  unwilling  "  bondage. 
It  is  against  the  tendencies  of  Nature  hers(>lf,  for  she 
abhors  the  imperfect  and  the  transient  as  truly  as  she 
abhors  a  vacuum.  It  is  God's  doing  for  a  temporary  end. 
It  is  to  be  temporary;  since  He  subjected  His  creation  to 
this  fate  in  liope.  In  hope  !  there  is  the  one  divine  word 
which  will  explain  or  justify  everything.  Sympathising 
with  her  human  head,  creation  bows  to  her  temporary  bon- 
dage ;  but  as  a  nobler  condition  has  been  promised  to  that 
central  and  ruling  creature  who  is  God's  son,  so  the  poor 
mute  partners  of  man's  humiliation  are  to  be  his  partners 
likewise  in  the  day  of  his  glory.  Nature  is  a  sharer  in  the 
hope  of  humanity. 

This  is  not  teaching  to  be  gathered  from  Nature  itself. 
It  is  Christian  teaching.  It  grows  right  out  of  the  revela- 
tion of  God  in  Christ.  The  Eternal  Son  of  the  Father, 
archetype  of  man,  is  become  man.  Born  of  the  Virgin, 
He  became,  like  all  of  us,  a  part  of  Nature  ;  linked  to  this 
very  creation  which  is  in  bondage  to  vanity.  He  is  now 
Nature's  Head,  because  He  is  the  Son  of  Man  and  the 
Head  of  every  other  man.  He  is  Nature's  representative, 
its  new  Adam,  its  First-Fruits,  its  Redeemer  from  vanity 
and  corruption.  But  He  is  already  transformed  out  ot 
the  corruptible  into  incorruption  ;  out  of  transitoriness 
and  mortal  change  into  permanence  ;  out  of  vanity  into 
perfection  and  eternal  life.  In  a  word,  He  has  been  de- 
livered from  the  bondage  of  corruption  into  the  liberty  of 
the  glory  of  the  Son  of  God.     In  His  deliverance  is  con- 


THE  GROANS  OF  CREATION.         255 

tained  a  pledge  of  that  for  wliicli  Nature  groaning  waits. 
The  original  conditions  nnder  which  our  world  was  placed 
and  has  been  kept  so  long  become  intelligible  when  we 
see  that  the  world,  like  man,  is  a  redeemed  world,  on  its 
way  to  share  in  the  splendid  destiny  to  which  Christ 
conducts  redeemed  humanity. 

If  we  are  to  receive  teaching  like  this,  I  repeat  that  it 
must  be  by  faith.  Science  will  not  help  us  here  any  more 
than  science  can  tell  how  at  first  the  worlds  were  framed 
by  the  Word  of  God.  Investigation  has  revealed  nothing 
as  to  the  real  genesis  of  creation.  It  can  reveal  nothing 
as  to  its  palingenesis,  its  regeneration  or  second  birth. 
But  when  we  believe  in  the  Incarnation  and  in  the  Re- 
demption ;  when  we  believe  that  the  earth's  destiny  is 
mixed  up  with  human  destiny,  and  human  destiny  with 
that  of  the  Son  of  God ;  when  we  believe  that  Jesus  was 
raised  in  a  body  material  yet  possessed  of  incorruptible 
glory,  and  that  the  saints  shall  be  raised  in  the  same 
likeness — then  we  can  believe  also  in  "  a  new  heaven  and 
a  new  earth."  Of  the  future  constitution  of  the  globe  and 
of  its  future  population  revelation  has  revealed  next  to 
nothing.  Perhaps  it  might  not  be  possible  to  reveal  much 
under  the  limitations  of  our  present  knowledge.  Certainly 
it  could  not  be  helpful  to  our  moral  progress  to  puzzle  us 
now  with  the  mysteries  of  coming  material  changes. 
But  nothing  as  yet  known  to  us  forbids  the  idea  of  a 
world  in  which  every  creature  should  fulHl  its  ideal  and 
retain  its  perfection  ;  a  world  from  which  flaws  and  decay 
and  failure  and  corruption  and  groans  should  be  banished  ; 
a  world  whose  loveliness  should  be  enduring  as  the  blue  of 
sapphire  or  the  green  of  emerald,  and  its  materials  as  pure 
and  free  from  stain  as  pavement  of  crystal  washed  with  the 
river  of  God. 


(     256     ) 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

WAITING    IN    HOPE. 

"And  not  only  so,  but  ourselves  also,  which  have  the  first-fruits  of  the 
Spirit,  even  we  ourselves  groan  within  ourselves,  waiting  for  our  adoption,  to 
wit,  the  redemption  of  our  body.  For  by  hope  were  we  saved  ;  but  hope 
that  is  seen  is  not  hope  ;  for  who  hopeth  for  that  which  he  seeth  ?  But  if  we 
hope  for  that  which  we  see  not,  then  do  we  with  patience  wait  for  it.  And 
jn  like  manner  the  Spirit  also  helpeth  our  infirmity  ;  for  we  know  not  how 
to  pray  as  we  ought ;  but  the  Spirit  himself  maketh  intercession  for  us  wilh 
gioanings  which  cannot  be  uttered ;  and  He  that  searcheth  the  hearts  knoweth 
what  is  the  mind  of  the  Spirit,  because  He  maketh  intercession  for  the  saints 
according  to  the  will  of  God." — RoM.  viii.  23-27. 

T^O  be  a  Christian  means  to  be  more  alive  than  other  men 
-^  are.*.  The  life  of  faitb,  born  of  God,  touches  a  vaster 
world  than  tbis.  It  lies  open  to  greater  forces  than  play 
on  other  men.  The  evils  whicb  a  religious  man  fears,  the 
blessings  whicb  he  seeks,  are  grander  than  those  of  earth. 
His  thoughts  range  over  ampler  themes.  The  infinite 
and  eternal  is  about  him  as  he  moves ;  and  in  that  more 
awful  fellowship  bis  life  widens  and  grows  intense. 

The  most  advanced  Christians  are  susceptible,  for  this 
reason,  to  deeper  kinds  of  pain  than  earthly  natures  feel. 
To  say  this  is  not  to  deny  the  more  abundant  joys  of 
regenerate  experience.  Though  peace  and  hope  and  con- 
tentment in  God  are  calmer  forms  of  enjoyment  than  the 
feverish  draught  of  appetite  or  of  passion,  yet  they  draw 

*  Compare  Christ's  words  :  *'  I  came  that  they  may  have  life,  and  may 
have  it  abundantly  "  (John  x.  10). 


WAITING  IN  HOPE.  257 

from  a  divine  depth  a  deeper  happiness.  But  suscepti- 
bility to  more  spiritual  joys  carries  with  it  a  correspond- 
ing susceptibility  to  new  and  keener  pains.  Constituted 
as  existence  is  in  this  world,  all  light  must  cast  a  shadow 
proportioned  to  its  own  brightness. 

Nor  is  it  diflScult  to  perceive  that  the  main  source  of 
inward  pain  to  Christians  must  lie  in  the  incongruity 
which  obtains  between  this  new  life  and  its  surroundings. 
At  the  core,  a  Christian  is  a  new  man  ;  yet  the  environ- 
ment of  that  new  man  is  all  old.  Not  only  do  old  habits 
retain  their  power  and  old  passions  continue  to  fret,  but 
the  old  society  enweaves  him  still  in  its  mesh  and  the  old 
occupations  engross  him  as  they  used  to  do.  His  spirit  is 
redeemed,  it  is  true  ;  yet  it  is  as  closely  implicated  as  ever 
in  an  unredeemed  world. 

At  one  point  especially  is  it  plain  that  the  new  man 
remains  firmly  attached  to  the  old  conditions.  I  mean,  by 
his  body.  The  spiritual  child  of  God  still  underlies  the 
bondage  of  corruption  on  the  physical  side  of  his  being. 
Through  that  link  he  continues  to  be  involved,  as  a  mem- 
ber of  this  mundane  system  of  things,  in  the  "  vanity " 
to  which  the  whole  creation  is  subjected.  He  shares  with 
everything  earthly  in  its  incompleteness  and  transitoriness. 
With  all  animal  existence  he  shares  its  gross  physical 
necessities ;  and  with  our  fallen  race  he  shares  the  vain 
habits  which  have  been  handed  down  from  our  forefathers, 
as  well  as  the  temptations  to  evil  which  are  involved  in 
the  arrangements  of  society. 

I  despair  to  suggest  by  a  few  words  in  what  countless 
ways  the  physical  conditions  of  life  are  incessantly  clog- 
ging or  neutralising  the  action  of  the  redeemed  nature. 
No  doubt  it  is  not  exclusively  on  the  physical  side  that 
evil  assails  us.  It  is  fair  to  add  that  diabolic  sins  like 
pride,  distrust,  selfishness,  and  malignity  flourish  indepen- 

R 


258  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

dently  of  material  incitementSj  and  could  not  be  got  rid 
of  simply  by  being  disembodied.  Christian  life,  however, 
when  it  has  attained  a  good  development,  proves  itself  a 
match  for  such  spiritual  vices,  in  innumerable  instances 
where  it  still  suffers  under  evils  both  physical  and  moral 
that  are  the  direct  result  of  its  earthly  surroundings.  It 
is  especially  as  a  hindrance  to  spiritual  activity  and  a  pro- 
vocative to  unspiritual  indulgences  that  the  outer  world 
tells  against  Christian  life.  What  languor,  for  instance, 
and  religious  depression  are  bred  of  bodily  causes,  what 
nervous  anxiety  about  the  future,  what  weariness  in 
devotion,  what  unreadiness  for  the  service  of  God  and 
man !  How  the  very  duties  of  daily  existence  as  well  as 
its  necessary  social  intercourse  impede  the  religious  life 
and  gnaw  away  its  strength  !  How  constantly  through  the 
operation  of  outward  circumstances  is  a  good  man  weighed 
down  under  a  sense  of  dissatisfaction  and  of  endeavour 
unaccomplished !  To  be  quit  of  this  worldly  life  would 
certainly  do  nothing  at  all  to  deliver  a  bad  man  from  his 
love  of  evil ;  but  it  might  conceivably  do  a  very  great 
deal  to  set  a  good  man  free  to  do  good  more  easily  and 
freely.  Who  can  tell  how  instant,  how  magical  in  its 
effect,  may  be  the  deliverance  wrought  by  death  for  one 
whose  deep  longings  after  God  and  holiness  have  all  his 
days  been  imprisoned  in  his  heart,  buried  beneath  a  burden 
of  fleshliness,  thwarted  by  an  uncongenial  world  !  Once  re- 
leased from  these  untoward  surroundings,  how  may  the  real 
man  leap  upward,  to  put  forth  in  a  more  congenial  atmos- 
phere the  free  and  fragrant  life  of  beatified  saintship ! 

The  truth  is  that  the  present  position  of  God's  children 
in  this  world  can  be  nothing  but  a  puzzle,  or  bundle  of  para- 
doxes. The  language  of  St.  Paul  reflects  the  inconsistency  of 
their  situation.  He  styles  them  redeemed,  yet  expecting  re- 
demption ;  adopted,  yet  waiting  for  the  adoption ;  set  free, 


WAITING  IN  HOPE.  259 

yet  in  bondage  to  evil ;  risen  from  death,  yet,  behold,  they 
die  daily.  The  key  to  these  paradoxes  can  only  be  found  in 
this, — that  Christian  men  are  in  a  state  of  transition.  They 
are  caught  in  an  unfinished  process.  A  change  has  been 
begun  which  is  not  yet  complete.  Call  it  renewal  or  redemp- 
tion or  deliverance,  or  what  you  please  ;  some  solemn  and 
splendid  process,  of  which  the  man  is  conscious,  has  set 
in  at  the  core  of  his  being.  But  the  outward  part  of  him 
is  the  last  to  be  reached  by  the  change ;  and  so  long  as 
that  remains  unreached,  so  long  must  this  puzzling  dualism 
last.  Alive  in  part,  but  also  in  part  dead  or  dying,  noble 
at  once  and  mean,  the  man  is  at  his  centre  a  citizen  and 
heir  of  God's  eternal  heaven,  yet  by  his  outer  physical 
attachments  bound  to  the  groaning  creation  and  heir  to 
its  vanity  and  mortality. 

It  is  not  as  if  we  had  a  quarrel  with  matter  or  with 
Nature.  Our  quarrel  is  with  the  inharmoniousness  of  this 
present  state  of  being  with  a  spirit  quickened  from  above. 
What  the  saint  longs  for  is  not  emancipation  from  the 
material,  but  the  emancipation  of  the  material  from  the 
bondage  of  corruption ;  not  to  be  done  with  earth,  but  to 
see  earth  done  with  sin  and  vanity;  not- to  be  unclothed 
of  the  body,  but  to  be  clothed  upon  with  a  body  that  is 
celestial.  In  this  there  is  nothing  Manichsean,  not  the 
slightest  tinge  of  asceticism  ;  but  there  is  a  fellow-feeling, 
profound  and  inveterate,  with  that  mystic  longing  which 
pervades  material  creation  for  the  accomplishment  of  the 
purpose  of  God,  and  for  the  transmutation  of  His  material 
world  into  its  destined  and  perfected  and  enduring  con- 
dition. 

What,  then,  is  the  attitude  which  best  befits  this  situa- 
tion ?  It  is  this — to  icait  in  hope  !  The  unintelligent 
creatures  wait,  but  not  in  hope.  They  travail  as  in  pain 
with  the  burden  of  a  future  birth,  of  which  they  themselves 


26o  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

are  ignorant;  or  they  long,  as  Paul  poetically  pictures 
them,  with  outstretched  neck  and  weary  eye,  after  they 
know  not  what.  We  know  what  we  wait  for.  The  sons 
of  God  possess  already  an  earnest  of  their  coming  in- 
heritance. Little  as  they  know  of  what  it  will  be  when 
it  appears,  they  know  at  least  that  it  will  be  the  comple- 
tion of  what  they  now  possess  in  part — the  spiritual 
likeness  of  Jesus  Christ ;  and  this  hope,  based  on  promise 
and  matured  by  experience,  lends  calmness  to  Christian 
waitinof  and  endurance  to  Christian  fortitude.  "We  are 
saved  by  hope." 

Even  in  unbelievers  who  feel  acutely  the  present  ill,  or 
who  reflect  deeply  upon  it,  there  is  for  the  most  part  a 
prognostication  of  some  end-goal  towards  which  they  say 
humanity  must  be  tending.  All  thoughtful  men  who  are 
not  pessimists  are  compelled  to  cherish  the  belief  that  the 
"  far-off  divine  event "  towards  which  the  ages  slowly 
move  must  prove  to  be,  some-how,  some  day,  a  "  golden 
age  "  of  light  and  peace  and  freedom  and  domestic  purity 
and  social  order  and  widespread  content  and  universal 
brotherhood — a  day  of  sabbatic  rest  after  earth's  long 
wars  and  fruitless  toil.  Save  before  the  fall  of  the  Koman 
Empire,  and  again  in  the  dark  century  which  preceded 
the  year  of  our  era  looQ,  believed  to  be  big  with  fate,  it 
is  possible  that  no  recorded  period  of  history  has  seen  the 
throbbing  of  the  world's  heart  after  such  a  denouement 
more  strong  than  it  is  to-day.  But  this  secular  hope 
lacks  the  christian  foundation.  It,  too,  knows  not  well 
what  it  hopes  for,  or  why  it  hopes  for  it.  It  is  at  best 
an  inference  from  probabilities,  where  it  is  not  a  mere 
reflection  from  christian  teaching.  With  many  it  is  a 
thought  born  of  a  wish.  Yearnings  like  that  may  prove 
prophetic  or  they  may  not.  Thank  God  that  in  the 
resurrection  of  our  Lord  he  who  has  embraced  the  chris- 


WAITING  IN  HOPE.  26  I 

tian  faith  holds  a  distinct  pledge  of  what  earth  and  man- 
kind are  vaguely  crying  after !  A  beginning  has  been 
made  even  of  the  redemption  of  matter.  One  earthly 
body  lives  undying  in  the  eternal  glory.  One  foretaste 
has  been  given  of  the  consummation  towards  which 
all  history  moves.  On  the  firm  ground  which  this  faith 
affords  the  feet  of  Christian  Hope  are  planted ;  with 
head  uplifted  toward  heaven,  her  eyes  are  lit  with  the 
dawning  of  the  day. 

Sober  this  hope  of  Christian  men  in  the  final  regenera- 
tion of  all  things  may  always  be.  Confident  it  should  be, 
for  it  is  built  on  divine  facts.  But  how  seldom  can  it 
reach  a  buoyant  or  cheerful  tone !  How  often,  while  we 
must  sit  and  wait  silent  in  the  darkness,  is  the  sad  heart 
overborne  by  a  myriad  shapes  of  doubt  and  trouble  which 
appear  to  block  every  avenue  of  deliverance  !  What  shall 
the  weary  soul  do  then  when  her  Lord  seems  so  far  away 
and  the  wheels  of  His  chariot  so  long  in  coming  ?  Do ! 
Let  her  cry  !  Shall  the  confused  moaning  of  the  creatures 
have  a  meaning  in  His  ear  Who  made  them,  and  shall  not 
His  own  children  cry  to  Him  for  deliverance  when  the 
burden  of  corruption  weighs  them  too  heavily  to  the 
ground  ?  Yet  here  again  is  our  infirmity.  We  know  not 
in  such  a  strait  what  we  should  pray  for  as  we  ought.  In 
all  troubles  of  a  purely  spiritual  nature  we  need  be  at  no 
loss.  It  can  never  be  wrong  to  beg  Him  to  deliver  us 
from  sins,  from  unbelief  and  a  cold  heart,  from  an  insincere 
tongue,  or  a  thankless  spirit.  But  this  complication  of 
secular  misfortunes — may  I  pray  to  be  rid  of  that  ?  This 
difficult  position,  where  the  world's  pressure  of  temptation 
grows  unbearable — is  it  right  to  seek  escape  from  that  ? 
This  sick,  scourged,  or  maimed  tabernacle  of  the  body 
— what  shall  I  ask  for  it  ?  God  has  not  told  us  how  far 
we  may  seek  relief  from  these  things  or  when  He  means 


2  62  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

to  set  us  free  from  them.  Knowing  that  they  are  all 
elements  in  His  discipline  of  our  spiritual  nature,  one 
knows  not  what  to  wish  or  pray  for.  Hardly  dare  a  dying 
saint  in  his  pain  ask  for  the  release  of  death,  since  to  abide 
in  the  flesh  may  be  more  needful  for  others.  What  to 
pray  for  we  know  not ;  and  yet  in  our  anguish  pray  we 
must. 

It  seems  as  though  there  were  here  an  extremity  fit  to 
be  God's  opportunity.  St.  Paul's  words  (ver.  26),  mysterious 
as  in  some  respects  they  are,  suggest  to  us  how,  in  this  our 
infirmity,  One  comes  near  with  secret  hand  to  subvent  and 
help  us.  The  Christian  oppressed  with  the  world's  load 
is  not,  it  appears,  alone  at  his  solitary  prayers.  A  mystic 
Comrade  is  near,  though  undetected  by  our  consciousness, 
so  intimately  does  He  become  the  Confidant  and  Partner 
of  our  secret  life.  With  this  instinctive  longing  of  christian 
hearts  to  be  rid  of  their  evil  environment,  He  cherishes  a 
genuine  sympathy.  He  tempers  the  natural  cry  of  one  in 
pain  into  dutiful  and  gracious  submission.  He  enables  the 
soul  to  breathe  into  God's  ear  a  scarce-formed,  scarce-spoken 
wish — a  groan  not  much  more  articulate  than  those  of  crea- 
tion. Such  groans  are  good  prayers.  It  is  true  you  dare  not 
define  in  set  terms  either  the  manner  or  the  time  of  the 
deliverance  you  crave.  You  scarce  dare  say  aloud  so  much 
as  that  you  crave  it  at  all.  No  matter.  To  be  able  to 
utter  a  petition  in  articulate  words,  it  is  necessary  no  doubt 
to  form  a  mental  conception  of  what  it  is  you  ask  for.  But 
when  all  that  we  are  conscious  of  is  a  dim  sense  of  need — 
w^hen  we  know  not  clearly  what  the  best  answer  to  our 
need  may  be —  then  the  prayer  that  is  crushed  out  of  the 
soul  is  inarticulate.  It  is  like  the  cry  of  a  dumb  thing  in 
its  pain  ;  not  asking  for  anything,  so  much  as  making 
appeal  only  to  the  great  pity  of  One  far  wiser  and  better. 
It  is  like  the  silent  look  of  a  stunsr  and  tortured  child  in 


WAITING  IN  HOPE.  263 

the  serpent's  coil  to  the  wider  wisdom  and  tlie  stronger 
arm  of  the  father.  Such  formless  appeals,  groans,  if 
you  will,  unclothed  in  phrases  intelligible  to  human  ear, 
go  up  (let  us  be  sure  of  it !)  articulate  and  intelligible 
enough  to  the  listening  ear  of  Heaven.  It  is  because 
the  secret  God  Who  inhabits  the  petitioner  makes  that 
petition  His  own.  With  an  awful  tenderness  of  sym- 
pathy He  prays  it  along  with  you.  Although  on  earthly 
lips  it  dies  away  into  a  babble  or  a  sigh,  or  rises  into  a 
cry  "  of  little  meaning  though  the  words  be  strong,"  it  is 
otherwise  with  the  Divine  Co-petitioner  within  the  bosom. 
He  knows  full  clearly  what  the  soul  would  be  at,  if  she 
only  knew  how  to  reach  it.  He  interprets  the  real  deep 
under-sense  of  our  groaning.  So  understood  in  Heaven's 
light,  He  prays  the  prayer  along  with  us,  and  means  just 
what  we  ought  to  mean  if  we  knew  how,  just  what  we  do 
obscurely  and  at  bottom  mean.  To  the  great  hearkening 
ear  of  the  Eternal  Love,  therefore,  the  sob,  the  spasm  of 
unresolved  desire  goes  up  a  clear-voiced  petition  of  most 
sweet  sound,  asking  for  just  that  wisest,  noblest  answer 
to  all  earth's  wrongs  and  griefs  which  from  everlasting 
it  has  lain  in  our  Father's  heart  to  grant. 

Beneath  this  representation  of  the  Apostle  there  lies 
beyond  all  question  a  deep  mystery.  The  coincidence  of 
the  Divine  Spirit  in  these  profoundest,  saddest  moods  of 
christian  experience,  when  the  evils  of  the  present  force 
the  saint  to  cry  out  after  a  deliverance  whose  nature  he 
cannot  formulate  in  thought,  touches  the  very  root  of  our 
spiritual  being,  which  is  God  in  us  and  with  us,  our  life 
of  life.  But  what  mighty  support  is  here  suggested  beneath 
the  weight  of  earthly  and  fleshly  ills !  How  beset  is  a 
christian  man  with  divine  sympathy  and  the  aid  of 
his  Divine  Friend  !  Within,  one  Paraclete,  encouraging, 
sustaining,   interceding;   yet  so  close  that  His  activity 


264  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

merges  itself  imperceptibly  in  tlie  actings  of  our  own 
nature.  Above,  another  Paraclete  or  Intercessor,  Who 
likewise,  touched  with  the  same  feeling  of  our  infirmity, 
makes  prayer  for  us  in  His  own  Name  on  high,  and  is  able 
thus  to  succour. us  in  an  hour  of  temptation  and  of  need. 
What  magnificent  forces  girdle  the  struggling  soul !  What 
messengers  mightier  than  any  angel  have  come  to  minister 
to  the  heirs  of  salvation  !  What  manner  of  answer  must 
that  be  which  shall  fulfil  at  last  all  that  creation  labours 
towards  in  her  pain,  all  that  the  christian  hearts  of  all 
the  ages  sigh  after  in  their  mortal  need,  all  that  God 
Himself  unites  to  desire  for  His  groaning  children !  The 
voices  of  strong  desire  which  have  been  going  upward  to  the 
Father,  age  after  age,  are  echoing  still,  a  vast  and  gather- 
ing sound  of  entreaty,  a  mighty  ocean-murmur  of  appeal 
against  sin  and  sin's  havoc  upon  earth,  against  death  and 
vanity  and  the  bondage  of  corruption  ;  and  still  the  volume 
gathers,  for  the  answer  is  still  delayed.  When,  in  the 
blessed  will  of  Heaven,  the  just  moment  shall  arrive  for 
the  manifestation  of  God's  sons  in  the  likeness  of  Christ, 
and  earthly  creation  shall  be  transfigured,  and  human 
life  beatified  and  canonised,  how  shall  the  moan  of  pain 
and  the  sigh  of  hope  deferred  and  the  groan  of  passionate 
unaccomplished  longing  give  place  to  the  jubilant  song  of 
a  delivered  world ! 


(     265     ) 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

THE  FIVE  LINKS  OF  SALVATION. 

"And  we  know  that  to  them  that  love  God  all  things  work  together  for 
good,  even  to  them  that  are  called  according  to  his  purpose.  For  whom  he 
foreknew,  he  also  foreordained  to  be  conformed  to  the  image  of  his  Son, 
that  he  might  be  the  firstborn  among  many  brethren  :  and  whom  he  fore- 
ordained, them  he  also  called  :  and  whom  he  called,  them  he  also  justified  : 
and  whom  he  justified,  them  he  also  glorified." — Roii.  viii.  28-30. 

rPHE  Christian  optimism  of  St.  Paul  has  very  little  in 
-*-  common  with  that  easy-going  philosophy,  which, 
without  having  laid  to  heart  the  mystery  of  moral  evil, 
assumes  in  a  jaunty  fashion  that  everything  must  turn 
out  for  the  best  in  the  long-run.  Where  any  theory  at 
all  lies  at  the  bottom  of  such  light-heartedness,  it  can 
only  be  this,  that  evil  is  in  every  case  a  necessary  passage 
towards  good  ;  so  that,  no  matter  how  men  act,  the  goal 
of  all  must  be  universal  happiness.  Were  this  an  ex- 
haustive account  of  human  life,  it  would  indeed  be  foolish 
to  trouble  oneself  very  much  about  anything.  This  is 
certainly  not  St.  Paul's  teaching,  for  he  does  not  say 
''all  things  work  for  good"  to  every  man;  nor  Christ's, 
for  He  knew  of  some  for  whom  it  had  been  better  if  they 
had  never  been  born. 

The  error  in  this  slipshod  theory  of  "  all  for  the  best 
all  round,"  consists  in  leaving  out  of  sight  the  fatal  signifi- 
cance of  an  evil  will.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  our  Father  in 
heaven  desires  all  things  to  turn  out  for  good  to  every 
one,  for  He  means  His  providence  to  be  a  discipline 
conducting  us  to  repentance  and  holiness.     If  only  the 


2  66  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

conscience  and  heart  of  every  man,  taught  by  the  salutary 
lessons  of  experience,  would  amend  and  seek  the  Father's 
face  when  He  chastens,  then  surely  every  event  would 
tend  to  final  "  good."  But  it  is  a  tremendous  "  if."  The 
evil  love  of  a  bad  heart  and  the  evil  choice  of  a  bad  will 
can  never  be  for  the  best.  These  work  only  and  always 
for  the  worst.  When  prosperity  inflates  a  man  with  con- 
ceit or  tempts  him  to  self-indulgence ;  when  adversity 
embitters  his  temper  or  drives  him  to  vice  or  misanthropy 
— are  they  "  working  together  for  good  "  ?  Is  there  not 
rather  for  some  people  a  frightful  concurrence  of  all  things 
for  evil,  when  out  of  wholesome  providences  an  ungodly 
temper  extracts  nothing  but  encouragement  in  pride  or 
provocation  to  self-will  ? 

St.  Paul's  language  therefore  is  quite  bold  enough  to 
correspond  with  the  facts,  when  he  limits  the  concurrence 
of  all  things  for  good  to  one  class  of  persons  only.  It  is 
a  class  strictly  defined  on  two  opposite  sides.  That  the 
whole  of  a  man's  experience  should  concur  to  promote  his 
ultimate  advantage,  two  conditions  are  essential.  The 
one  is  inward  and  personal.  He  must  bear  himself 
aright  toward  Him  Whose  providence  is  playing  upon 
him.  He  must  be  a  lover  of  the  God  Who  orders  all 
things.  It  is  a  brief  and  pithy  account  of  that  temper 
of  mind  which  is  able  to  extract  good  out  of  everything. 
Love  is  the  secret  alchemy  that  transmutes  into  celestial 
gold  the  dross  of  daily  experience.  To  take  the  ups  and 
downs  of  life,  neither  in  atheistic  indifference,  nor  with 
the  misjudging  interpretation  of  self-love,  but  as  one  who 
knows  and  loves  the  Fatherly  Hand  from  which  they 
come,  is  to  read  in  each  of  them  His  own  kind  meaning, 
and  be  moved  by  them  all  alike  to  fresh  acts  of  piety. 
Devout  hearts  find  even  the  obscure  and  beaten  ways  of 
common  life  to  be  full  of  God.  Nothing  comes  amiss  to 
them ;  for  they  lie  open  to  a  Voice,  still  and  low,  which 


THE  FIVE  LINKS  OF  SALVATION.  2  6/ 

whispers  to  tlie  listening  ear  through  every  channel.  If 
it  is  an  art  to  decipher  the  gracious  sense  of  all  that 
happens,  who  is  so  likely  to  acquire  that  rare  and  delicate 
skill  as  he  ^who  loves  the  best,  and,  because  he  loves, 
knows  best  the  God  of  providence  ?  Indeed,  a  good  deal 
of  the  benefit  to  be  gained  through  the  experiences  of 
life  consists  in  the  mere  habit  of  dependence  and  submis- 
sion upon  the  Unseen  Friend  which  it  engenders.  Like  a 
Nobler  Son,  we  too  have  to  learn  obedience  through  what 
we  suffer,  and  humility  through  our  humiliations.  Given 
the  child-heart  that  loves  and  waits — what  earthly  change 
of  lot  can  fail  to  come  like  a  laden  angel  from  the  Presence, 
bringing  gifts  that  wrap  no  sorrow  in  the  heart  of  them  ? 
The  other  condition  attached  by  St.  Paul  to  his  opti- 
mistic summing  up  of  life  is  of  a  different  character.  It 
concerns  not  our  personal  attitude,  but  the  divine  will. 
The  two  must  always  in  point  of  fact  coincide ;  since  they 
who  love  God  are  also  the  "  called  according  to  His  pur- 
pose." But  the  divine  prevision  and  foreordination  are 
introduced  here,  as  I  suppose,  in  order  to  remind  the 
reader  that  Grace  and  Providence  are  two  concurrent  parts 
of  one  design,  fitted  into  each  other.  He  Who  purposed 
in  His  grace  to  call  His  people  to  salvation,  is  He  Who 
has  at  the  same  time  planned  their  whole  course  of  life 
so  as  to  minister  to  that  final  issue.  It  is  the  gracious 
intention  to  save  through  Christ  which  prescribed  a  ruling 
aim  to  providence.  To  that  intention  everything  else  is 
made  subordinate.  In  the  light  of  that  everything  reveals 
its  meaning.  "  AH  things  "  which  happen  to  the  Chris- 
tian are  not  only  consistent  with  his  spiritual  welfare — 
they  are  expressly  designed  to  advance  it.  In  the  plan 
of  one's  life,  how  many  strange  factors  combine !  how 
many  unexpected  and  unlikely  co-operators  are  laid  under 
contribution  !  Blasts  of  ill  fortune  which  shake  one's  faith 
really  tighten  the  hold  of  the  soul  on  God.     Seductions 


2  68  THE  GOSPEL  ACCOHDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

from  duty,  when  they  are  withstood,  only  confirm  the 
habit  of  self-control.  One's  work  may  appear  a  failure  or 
be  cut  short  before  it  is  ripe,  but  the  disappointment  ends 
in  flinging  the  worker  more  entirely  into  the  arms  of  his 
Lord,  and  maturing  his  devotion  for  nobler  service  in  a 
higher  field.  We  may  see  it  or  not;  and,  for  the  most 
part,  we  do  not  see  it ;  but  the  loving  heart  can  trust  the 
All-wise  to  make  no  mistake.  So  may  the  Christian  front 
the  changeful  years  with  a  placid  temper,  suck  sweetness 
out  of  every  growth  of  time,  and  walk  the  earth  like  a 
king  whom  all  things  serve  as  his  obsequious  ministers. 
Stand  on  this  height  of  faith  where  St.  Paul's  bold  words 
set  you :  you  are  on  a  "  heaven-kissing  hill,"  serene  for 
ever  with  the  light  that  never  sets,  and  far  below  you  float 
the  shifting  clouds  of  time.  See,  how  they  form  :  they 
break  and  scatter ;  once  more  they  gather  into  gloom,  and 
all  the  air  is  restless  and  vexed  with  storm.  But  from 
this  clear  hill-top  faith  can  look  down  secure  and  sing 
with  unfaltering  lip  : — 

*'  I  stand  upon  the  mount  of  God 
With  sunlight  in  my  soul ; 
I  hear  the  storms  in  vales  beneath, 
I  hear  the  thunders  roll. 

•'  But  I  am  calm  with  Thee,  my  God, 
Beneath  these  glorious  skies  ; 
And  to  the  height  on  which  I  stand 
Nor  storms  nor  clouds  can  rise." 

Still  further  to  bring  out  this  security  of  the  Christian's 
salvation,  or  the  certainty  that  in  the  divine  plan  seeming 
hindrances  shall  prove  to  be  real  helps,  St.  Paul  proceeds 
to  show  in  what  a  chain  of  divine  acts  the  believer  is 
implicated,  who  has  been  "  called  "  in  accordance  with  the 
purpose  of  God. 

For  an  exhaustive  exhibition  of  the  truth,  it  is  quite 
certain  that  another  side  of  it  has  to  be  embraced  besides 


THE  FIVE  LINKS  OF  SALVATION.  269 

the  one  expressed  in  these  verses  (29,  30).  Salvation 
is  more  than  a  concatenation  of  divine  acts.  No  act  of 
God  in  reference  to  man  can  be  out  of  relation,  or  out  of 
harmony,  with  man's  own  free-will.  In  his  acceptance 
and  faithful  use  of  grace,  the  Christian  is  of  necessity  both 
a  voluntary  and  an  active  co-factor.  Here,  however,  where 
the  matter  in  question  is  the  certainty  that  no  outward 
hindrance  shall  frustrate  the  salvation  of  a  believer,  the 
human  factor  may  be  for  the  moment  left  out  of  reckon- 
ing. What  men  have  to  do  in  trusting  and  obeying  Christ 
or  in  "  making  their  own  election  sure  "  is  important  in  its 
proper  place.  But  its  place  is  not  here.  For  the  unfailing 
security  of  the  believer  is  guaranteed,  in  the  last  resort, 
by  the  fact  that  his  redemption  is  of  God's  grace,  from 
its  inception  right  on  through  all  its  stages  to  the  end. 

Five  divine  acts,  through  each  of  which  in  succession 
the  purpose  of  salvation  advances  to  its  accomplishment, 
are  linked  by  St.  Paul  into  one  golden  chain,  of  which  one 
end  is  let  down  out  of  the  unknown  past,  and  the  other 
returns  to  lose  itself  in  the  unknown  future.  Only  at  its 
middle  point  does  it  descend  to  touch  the  present  experi- 
ence of  men.  The  central  link  lies  close  at  hand.  It  is 
the  "call"  already  spoken  of,  which  brings  a  man  to 
Christ.  To  each  of  us  in  our  sinfulness  there  comes  with 
a  mingled  authority  and  sweetness  that  voice  which  bids 
us  "come  unto  Me."  With  such  majesty  and  yet  such 
grace  does  it  invite  us,  that  the  soul  which  trembles  for 
conscious  guilt  and  labours  being  heavy-laden,  has  no 
heart  to  refuse  its  call.  With  hesitating  wistful  feet  I 
come ;  the  timid  hand  scarce  dares  to  clasp  its  Saviour ; 
yet  instantly,  in  the  very  act,  there  is  cast  around  the  help- 
less soul  a  chain  of  love  and  faithfulness,  of  Heaven's  own 
temper.  Poor  and  evil  as  I  am,  I  am  caught  up  within 
the  coils  of  a  mighty  Purpose  of  Almighty  God,  everlast- 
ing as  Himself,  a  World-purpose  of  infinite  and  resistless 


270  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

grace,  wliicli  sweeps  from  heaven  to  earth  and  back  again 
from  earth  to  heaven.  This  temporal  earthly  link  to  which 
I  cling — this  Gospel  call  of  mercy — hangs  by  links  which 
are  pre-temporal  and  transcendental,  anterior  to  all  experi- 
ence. Back  of  human  history,  it  hangs  by  the  unsearch- 
able foreknowledge  and  foreordination  of  the  Eternal. 
Long  ago  was  fixed  the  destination  to  which  they  who 
believe  on  Christ  are  to  be  conducted :  and  onward  to 
that  end-goal  are  ^'  the  called  "  borne,  through  justification 
to  glory ;  till  the  chain  which  at  its  former  end  is  lost  in 
the  mystery  of  the  divine  decree  is  lost  at  its  further  end 
in  the  ineffable  splendour  of  the  heavenly  life. 

The  starting-point  of  human  redemption  is  concealed 
from  our  inspection.  It  is  to  be  sought  in  eternal  acts  of 
the  Divine  Mind,  of  which  too  little  has  been  disclosed  for 
us  to  say  much  with  confidence.  Over  these  mysterious 
words,  ^'  foreknew  "  and  "  foreordained  "  (in  the  Revised 
Version)  or  "predestinated"  (in  the  Authorised),  fierce 
battles  have  been  waged  betwixt  rival  schools  of  philo- 
sophical and  theological  thought.  The  knot  of  the  pro- 
blem— which  is  to  reconcile  the  absoluteness  of  the  divine 
decree  with  the  liberty  of  human  choice — is  one  for  philo- 
sophy more  than  for  theology ;  because  it  is  a  knot  which 
Scripture  has  not  untied,  and  the  solution  of  which  scarcely 
affects  in  the  slightest  the  practical  interests  of  the  religious 
life.  From  the  side  of  philosophy  it  seems  more  than  ques- 
tionable if  the  difiiculty  be  soluble  with  our  present  faculties. 
What  remains  save  to  respect  the  due  claims  both  of  the 
divine  volition  and  of  the  human,  since  God's  plan  of  the 
world  has  made  room  for  both,  while  we  abandon  as  beyond 
our  power  the  intellectual  reconciliation  of  the  two  ? 

What  St.  Paul  seems  concerned  to  urge  in  passages 
like  the  present,  and  what  therefore  it  concerns  our  piety 
to  hold  fast,  may  be  summed  up  in  a  few  sentences.  The 
primal  cause  or  source  to  which  we  must  refer  the  whole 


THE  FIVE  LINKS  OF  SALVATION.  2;  I 

series  of  redemptive  acts  is  the  sovereign  love  of  the 
Most  High.  In  His  eternal  act  of  will  by  which  the 
Almighty  embraced  His  counsel  of  redemption  from  first 
to  last,  there  could  be  no  uncertainty  as  to  the  issue  of  it 
— the  number  or  the  persons  of  those  who  should  in  the 
end  reap  its  saving  benefits.  Of  the  grounds  which  deter- 
mined "  the  election  of  grace,"  we  can  give  no  account ; 
but  that  the  Infinite  Mind  foresaw  and  the  Infinite  Love 
contemplated  in  His  eternal  plan  all  who  shall  be  saved, 
cannot  be  doubted,  either  on  grounds  of  Scripture  or  of 
reason.  Further,  the  end-goal  to  which  the  called  are 
being  guided  in  God's  grace  is  one  equally  foreseen  and 
predetermined.  It  belongs  to  infinite  wisdom  to  work 
all  things  according  to  a  purpose  :  it  belongs  to  infinite 
power  that  His  purpose  shall  not  fail. 

While  little  can  be  said  to  profit  concerning  those  early 
links  in  the  divine  counsel  which  lie  behind  us,  the 
future  for  which  the  redeemed  are  destined  is  announced 
by  St.  Paul  with  the  utmost  precision.  There  is  in  the 
divine  purpose  both  a  nearer  and  a  remoter  end.  The 
nearer  end  is  the  moral  assimilation  of  each  Christian 
to  Christ.  Christ  is  the  Christian's  "type."  He  is  the 
realized  ideal  of  saved  humanity.  Nor  only  is  He 
ethically  the  closest  possible  reproduction  in  the  human 
form  of  so  much  of  the  divine  glory  as  is  communicable 
to  man ;  but  in  Him  as  He  now  lives  in  deathless  bliss, 
human  nature  itself  has  received  its  apotheosis.  Humanity 
is  raised  first  to  its  perfection;  then  glorified  through 
union  with  the  Divine.  This  type  for  the  redeemed  of 
mankind,  therefore,  is  something  more  than  that  old 
iLKcojj  or  image  of  God  after  which  God  made  Adam.  In 
its  second  Head  "  from  heaven,'*  humanity  exists  not 
restored  merely,  but  transformed  ;  not  as  innocent,  but  as 
perfected.  This  was  in  God's  eternal  thought  the  model 
to  which  each  saved  man  is  destined  to  be  "  conformed. " 


272     THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAQL. 

The  remoter  end  is  not  individual  but  collective  ;  not 
saved  men  but  a  brotherhood  of  the  saved.  To  encircle  the 
first  Wearer  of  human  nature  in  its  redeemed  perfection  of 
sonship  unto  God  with  a  countless  band  of  similar  brother- 
men,  reflectors  of  His  likeness  and  comrades  in  His  glory 
— this  is  the  final  outcome,  the  attainment  of  which  ac- 
complishes the  thought  and  satisfies  the  heart  of  God. 

From  first  to  last,  this  magnificent  chain  of  redemptive 
acts  permits  neither  halt  nor  rupture.  The  secret  counsel 
of  His  will  holds  in  its  bosom  all  those  whom  the  future 
glory  shall  receive.  This  is  the  thought  on  which,  by  the 
structure  of  his  sentence,  St.  Paul  intended  to  lay  stress ; 
and  with  reason,  since  it  is  the  thought  which  pledges  to 
faith  the  security  of  the  believer  and  the  concurrence  of 
"all  things"  for  his  final  good.  Such  lofty  teaching  as 
this  is  easily  susceptible  of  being  abused.  We  shall  abuse 
it  if  we  refuse  to  obey  the  call  of  the  Gospel  because  we 
are  unable  to  ascertain  God's  secret  counsel.  We  shall 
abuse  it  if  we  resign  ourselves  to  a  fatalistic  security  be- 
cause His  purpose  stands  secure.  We  shall  abuse  it  if  we 
neglect  to  purify  ourselves  from  sin  because  one  day  we  are 
to  be  "glorified."  None  the  less  may  the  humble-minded 
and  watchful  believer,  who  trembles  at  God's  word,  use. 
these  great  truths  for  a  solace  under  the  heavy  burdens 
of  this  present  time.  None  the  less  may  he  repose  his 
feebleness  against  the  infinite  Bosom  of  God,  stretch  him- 
self upon  the  everlasting  Arms  that  encircle  him,  and  lay 
his  care  upon  the  strength  of  that  Hand  out  of  which 
none  can  pluck  him.  All  along  his  pathway  through  the 
hazards  of  time  to  the  rest  of  eternity,  may  he  count  on 
the  amazing  promise  of  One  Who  bends  providence  to  His 
ends  of  grace,  that  "  all  things  are  working  together  for 
the  good  of  him  who  loves  God  and  has  been  called  accord- 
ing to  His  purpose." 


(     273     ) 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

THE  CHALLENGE  OF  FAITH. 

"  "What  then  shall  we  say  to  these  things  ?  If  God  is  for  us,  who  is 
against  us?  He  that  spared  not  his  own  Son,  but  delivered  him  up  for  us 
all,  how  shall  he  not  also  with  liim  freely  give  us  all  things  ?  Who  shall  lay 
anything  to  the  charge  of  God's  elect?  It  is  God  that  justifieth  ;  who  is  he 
that  shall  condemn  ?  It  is  Christ  Jesus  that  died,  yea  rather,  that  was 
raised  from  the  dead,  who  is  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  wlio  also  niaketh  in- 
tercession for  us,  "Who  shall  separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ?  shall 
tribulation,  or  anguish,  or  persecution,  or  famine,  or  nakedness,  or  peril,  or 
sword?  Even  as  it  is  written,  For  thy  sake  we  are  killed  all  the  day  long ; 
we  were  accounted  as  sheep  for  the  slaughter.  Nay,  in  all  these  things  we 
are  more  than  conquerors  through  him  that  loved  us.  For  I  am  persuaded, 
that  neither  death,  nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor  principalities,  nor  things  present, 
nor  things  to  come,  nor  powers,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature, 
shall  be  able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus 
our  Lord."— EOM.  viii.  31-39. 

rPHE  long  discussion  which  opened  at  the  sixteenth  verse 
-*-  of  the  first  chapter  has  reached  its  close.  Step  by- 
step,  in  language  which  must  always  remain  the  text- 
book of  christian  theology,  has  this  inspired  doctor  of  the 
church  unfolded  the  Gospel  as  the  "  power  of  God  unto 
salvation  to  every  one  that  believeth."  AVhile  his  ardent 
mind  runs  through  the  high  argument,  and  especially 
when  at  the  close  he  dwells  on  the  security  we  possess 
for  the  accomplishment  -of  God's  saving  purpose,  the 
Apostle's  style  rises  in  dignity  and  force.  His  speech 
takes  fire  as  it  moves.  His  very  logic  grows  red-hot  and 
runs  into  a  poetic  mould ;  until   he  cannot  choose  but 

s 


274  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

burst  into  a  psean  of  exultant  praise  over  tlie  unassailable 
security  of  the  redeemed. 

In  point  of  rhetoric,  this  peroration  is  the  most  sublime 
passage  in  all  St.  Paul's  writings.  To  such  a  passage  it 
is  scarcely  possible  or  even  desirable  to  apply  a  cool 
analysis.  To  dissect  it  with  minuteness  is  to  run  the  risk 
of  missing,  not  merely  its  literary  beauty,  but  even  its 
spiritual  power.  I  wish  therefore  to  keep  what  I  have  to 
say  in  accord  with  the  tone  of  this  splendid  conclusion. 
At  the  same  time,  it  has  been  my  object  throughout  these 
chapters  to  make  as  clear  as  I  can  in  popular  language 
the  precise  connection  of  the  Apostle's  thought.  In  order 
to  maintain  this  method  to  the  close,  we  must  notice  how 
these  splendid  sentences  are  introduced,  and  why  they 
assume  the  form  of  a  challenge,  almost  of  a  defiance. 

Their  immediate  point  of  attachment  is  to  be  sought 
in  the  twenty-eighth  verse.  It  was  remarked  in  my  last 
chapter  that  the  optimism  of  that  verse  is  strictly  limited 
in  its  scope.  All  things  do  not  "  work  together  for  good  " 
in  the  case  of  every  man,  but  only  for  elect  and  godly 
men  who  love  God.  Even  under  this  restriction,  the 
iJoman  Christians  may  have  found  it  hard,  as  other 
Christians  have  done,  to  believe  it.  The  experience  of 
God's  people  is  not  all  to  appearance  helpful  for  good.  In 
every  age  the  life  of  Christians  has  been  environed  with  a 
girdle  of  adverse  influences,  which  so  far  from  seeming  to 
promote  their  salvation,  are  leagued  to  hinder  or  defeat 
it.  At  the  metropolis  of  imperial  heathendom  in  the  first 
century,  the  little  community  which  St.  Paul  addressed 
may  have  felt  as  if  he  only  mocked  its  distress  who  said, 
"  All  things  are  working  together  for  your  good."  But 
St.  Paul  has  sustained  his  bold  assertion  by  an  appeal 
(verses  29,  30)  to  that  closely  knit  chain  of  saving  acts 
through  which    God   has   effectually   provided   that   His 


THE  CHALLENGE  OF  FAITH.  275 

gracious  design  shall  not  fail,  no  matter  what  untoward 
circumstances  or  formidable  obstacles  may  oppose  it. 
This  being  so,  what  room  is  left  for  discouragement? 
The  persecuted  convert  at  Rome,  or  the  saint  of  any 
period,  can  find  nothing  to  object,  after  he  has  well  con- 
sidered "  these  things."  Over  against  that  chain  of  the 
divine  decree,  why  not  place  another,  called  the  challenges 
of  faith  ?  At  every  antagonist  of  meaner  worth  than  the 
Almighty,  fling  such  a  defiant  question  as  this,  "  If  God 
be  for  us,  who  can  be  against  us  ? "  In  this  way  the 
exultation  of  St.  Paul  over  the  security  of  believers 
assumes  very  naturally  the  form  in  what  we  meet  it 
here,  of  a  rapid  rhetorical  series  of  challenging  questions, 
followed  by  triumphant  replies. 

At  the  opening  of  the  series,  the  writer  is,  as  might 
be  expected,  more  argumentative  in  his  rhetoric  than  he 
becomes  further  on  after  he  has  gathered  heat.  It  is 
accordingly  in  the  31st  and  32nd  verses  that  we  find 
the  reasoning  most  nakedly  expressed.  Let  us  briefly 
examine  it. 

Since  God  has  engaged  Himself  to  save  those  whom 
He  has  "called  according  to  His  purpose,"  His  purpose 
can  fail  of  its  accomplishment  only  on  one  or  other  of  two 
suppositions :  either  because  a  power  superior  to  His  own 
opposes,  or  because  the  end  in  view  demands  on  His  part 
a  greater  sacrifice  than  He  is  prepared  to  make.  The 
former  alternative  is  clearly  inadmissible.  As  to  the 
second,  the  matter  needs  fuller  proof.  Is  God  then  so 
much  "for  us,"  that  He  is  willing  to  employ  for  our  sal- 
vation His  whole  plenitude  of  resources  ?  Can  we  safely 
count  on  His  grudging  or  withholding  nothing  that  is 
needful  to  effect  His  purpose  of  grace?  The  question  is 
no  less  vital  than  the  former.  Against  God,  if  He  do 
His  utmost,  no  creature  can  avail.     But  will  God  do  His 


276     THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

utmost  for  such  an  object?  The  question  is  answered  by 
an  appeal  to  facts.  St.  Paul  points  us  to  what  God  has 
already  sacrificed  in  the  cause  of  His  people's  redemption. 
The  surrender  of  His  Son  to  die  was  an  act  so  much 
beyond  parallel  that  after  it  there  is  no  conceivable  gift 
of  His  which  does  not  look  trivial  in  comparison. 

It  is  difficult  to  overestimate  the  force  of  this  mode  of 
reasoning  as  a  testimony  to  St.  Paul's  view  of  the  person 
of  Christ.  No  man  could  argue  as  he  does  here  who  did 
not  regard  our  Lord  as  a  Being  immeasurably  above  all 
others  in  His  pre-existent  dignity  and  incomparably  near 
in  love  and  honour  to  the  Father.  The  inference  is  that 
if  the  divine  heart  was  so  bent  on  saving  us  that  to  com- 
pass this  end  the  Son  was  not  withheld,  nothing  else  will 
be  grudged,  since  every  other  sacrifice  which  can  be  given 
is  infinitely  less.  Against  such  a  conclusion,  shallow  views 
of  the  origin  and  divine  dignity  of  our  Lord  must  be 
shattered. 

The  argument  itself  is  for  its  purpose  quite  invincible. 
When  one's  spirit  grows  faint  with  misgiving,  because 
the  ultimate  deliverance  from  evil  begins  to  look  uncer- 
tain through  a  mist  of  tears;  when  envious  vapours  of 
sorrow  dim  the  shining  of  the  divine  love  ;  when  we  have 
to  measure  with  dismay  our  puny  strength  against  such 
grisly  antagonists  as  mortal  pain  and  death ;  then  let  us 
arm  ourselves  with  the  stout  reasoning  of  this  Apostle, 
stalwart  of  heart  and  brain  as  he  is,  and  ask  ourselves : 
"  He  that  spared  not  His  own  Son,  but  delivered  Him  up 
for  us  all,  how  shall  He  not  also  with  Him  freely  give  us 
all  things?" 

From  the  safe  shelter  of  this  "shield  of  faith,"  the 
Apostle  can  afibrd  to  survey  with  courage  the  ring  of 
possible  adversaries  and  defy  in  succession  their  several 
onsets.     There  are  three  stages  in  this  challenge. 


THE  CHALLENGE  OF  FAITH.  277 

First :  "Who  shall  our  Accuser  be  ?  This  is  to  befrin 
at  the  weakest  point;  for  every  man  is  by  nature  weak 
through  his  guilt  and  lies  open  at  the  mercy  of  any 
adversary  who  chooses  to  lay  his  sins  to  his  charge.  He 
knows  it,  too.  The  conscience  trembles,  for  it  is  "a 
guilty  thing  surprised"  and  "doth  make  cowards  of  us 
all."  Men  who  have  lived  christian  lives  in  all  honesty 
from  their  childhood,  are  sometimes  disquieted  at  the  re- 
collection of  past  offences.  Satan  knows  how  to  play  the 
role  of  the  Accuser,  although  it  ill  becomes  him  ;  and  the 
citadel  of  peace  has  to  sustain  an  assault,  nay,  a  siege, 
whilst  all  that  a  man  has  ever  said  or  done  amiss,  his 
glips  in  duty,  his  evil  tongue,  his  proud  temper,  his 
murmurings,  his  insincere  devotions,  his  formalities,  his 
insincerities — are  marshalled  in  horrid  array  and  launched 
against  him  with  the  taunt:  How  dare  such  an  one  as 
you  call  himself  a  child  of  God  ? 

At  such  moments  of  alarm  the  believer  finds  no  defence 
save  in  the  free  mercy  of  the  Gospel.  He  must  take 
refuge  beneath  the  divine  promise  of  gratuitous  acquittal 
through  the  blood  of  Jesus.  "It  is  God  that  justifieth." 
"We  are  justified  freely  through  the  redemption  that  is 
in  Christ  Jesus."  "We  have  redemption  through  His 
blood,  even  the  forgiveness  of  sins."  "  There  is  now  no 
condemnation  to  them  that  are  in  Christ  Jesus."  Nothing 
will  stop  the  accuser's  mouth  but  the  one  mighty  act  of 
God's  sovereign  grace  by  which  He  acquits  and  justifies 
the  sinner.  This  makes  the  timid  believer  bold  again ; 
for  it  arms  him  with  an  answer  to  the  Adversary. 

Second :  Be  it  so  ;  let  the  accusers  be  all  heard,  if  they 
will.  Do  not  stop  their  mouth  as  if  the  cause  were  a  bad 
one.  Summon  your  worst  enemy  to  the  seat  of  judg- 
ment and  bid  him  do  his  utmost.  After  every  fault  has 
been  laid  to  the  charge  of  a  believer,  "who  shall  con- 


278     THE  GOSPEL  ACCOEDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

demn  ?  "  Ah,  that  is  another  affair.  That  is  no  part  of 
the  Adversary's  role.  Accuse  he  may :  condemn  he  dare 
not.  The  Judge  alone  can  do  that ;  and  beside  the  Judge 
— what  do  I  say  ?  in  the  seat  of  judgment  itself — is  One 
Whose  presence  there  is  a  verdict  of  acquittal.  For  Jesus 
the  Judge  is  in  His  own  person,  a  threefold,  fourfold 
answer  to  every  charge  against  His  people.  Is  it  alleged 
that  they  have  sinned  and  deserve  to  die  ?  It  is  He  Who 
died  for  them.  Nay,  Who  rose  from  the  dead  in  token  of 
their  acquittal.  Nay  more,  Who  even  reigns  at  God's 
right  hand  on  purpose  to  secure  deliverance.  Nay,  once 
again,  Who  is  Himself  the  Intercessor  for  them  there, 
pleading  against  their  condemnation  His  meritorious  and 
accepted  passion !     "  Who  can  condemn  ?  " 

Third  :  There  lingers  behind  one  other  shadowy  shape 
of  doubt,  impalpable  and  chill  as  any  ghost,  but  no  less 
hard  to  lay.  The  inviolable  safety  of  any  sinner  who  can 
claim  a  Saviour  in  the  person  of  his  Judge  and  finds  in 
his  Redeemer's  love  an  answer  to  every  charge,  may  well 
be  conceded.  But  what  if,  amid  the  spiritual  antagonisms 
of  this  life,  some  adverse  current  should  sweep  us  beyond 
the  reach  of  that  saving  love  ?  What  if  the  soul  and 
Christ  be  sundered  in  the  storms  of  time  ?  What  if 
temptation  or  strong  adversity  or  fatal  mischance  of  any 
sort  should  so  interpose  that  in  His  gladness  He  forget 
my  need  or  in  His  displeasure  reject  my  cry ! 

The  fear  is  natural  and  will  haunt  the  timorous  mind. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  a  vain  alarm.  The  very  adversities 
which  one  fears  may  prove  too  much  for  love,  only  give 
occasion  for  its  triumphant  display.  Life  never  presents 
to  the  modern  Christian  a  more  formidable  array  of  evils 
than  it  offered  to  St.  Paul  and  his  friends*  in  Rome.  Like 
the  Hebrews  of  the  Restoration  for  whom  was  composed 
the  plaintive  Psalm  which  St.  Paul  quotes,  they  were 


THE  CHALLENGE  OF  FAITH.  279 

"  killed  all  the  day  long "  for  their  God's  sake.  Yet 
round  upon  the  perils  which  begirt  them  does  this  bravest 
of  confessors  bid  them  cast  a  defiant  eye.  "  Who  shall 
separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ  ?  "  *'  Tribulation  "  that 
assails  from  without  ?  or  ^'  anguish "  of  heart  within  ? 
or  public  "  persecution  "  for  the  faith  ?  or  "  famine  or 
nakedness "  through  confiscation  and  exile  ?  or  even 
"  peril  "  of  life  ?  or  the  executioner's  "  sword  "  at  last  ? 
Can  such  a  sevenfold  league  of  enemies  prevail  to  sunder 
from  the  guardianship  of  the  Saviour  any  soul  that  loves 
Him  ?  Nay  :  for,  as  the  annals  of  the  faith  have  shown 
abundantly  from  that  day  till  this,  the  love  of  Christ  can 
keep  His  followers  steadfast  in  extremity  and  make  them 
snatch  a  triumph  from  the  very  jaws  of  death.  The  faith 
of  the  Apostle,  as  he  flings  down  his  glove  to  the  forces 
of  the  world,  has  found  a  myriad  echoes  in  the  heroism  of 
martyrs.  What  is  his  challenge  itself  but  an  echo  to 
the  calm  strong  words  of  the  King :  "  In  the  world  ye 
shall  have  tribulation ;  but  be  of  good  cheer :  I  have 
overcome  the  world." 

The  confidence  of  St.  Paul  essays  a  yet  higher  flight. 
It  is  a  light  thing  to  say  that  neither  the  harshness  of 
Roman  law,  nor  the  insults  of  the  Roman  populace,  nor  the 
spite  of  a  heathen  master,  nor  the  alienation  of  heathen 
relatives,  could  divorce  from  the  new  found  love  of  Jesus 
one  converted  slave  in  the  Trastevere.  To  tell  the  truth, 
this  eternal  love  that  chose  us  before  the  world,  sought  us 
when  lost,  and  died  for  our  sin,  is  of  all  powers  in  heaven 
or  earth  the  oldest,  strongest,  and  most  victorious.  Rising 
above  the  passing  incidents  of  the  hour  to  survey  from  a 
higher  altitude  the  whole  universe  of  created  being,  St. 
Paul  protests  that  not  within  its  ample  skirts  does  the 
power  exist  which  christian  faith  need  fear.  He  sweeps 
creation   into   a   few   vast   categories.      No  condition  of 


2  80  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  ST.  PAUL. 

existence  possible  to  man — be  it  life  or  death ;  nor  any- 
spiritual  force  above  buman  ken — be  it  angel  or  princi- 
pality of  good  or  ill ;  no,  nor  any  furthest  bounds  of  space 
— as  height  or  depth  ;  nor  any  change  that  time  can  work 
— whether  in  the  present  or  in  the  future  : — nothing  can 
break  the  sacred  link  which  unites  the  ransomed  soul  to 
the  Redeemer's  love !  What  after  all  are  these,  every  one 
of  them,  but  creatures  only?  His  creatures,  made  to 
"  work  together"  in  His  saving  plan,  or  failing  that  to  be 
baffled  and  defeated  that  the  counsel  of  His  heart  may 
stand. 

For  here  after  all  stands  faith's  innermost  stronghold 
and  asylum — in  the  eternal  Purpose  of  Almighty  Love. 
Sweet  it  may  be  and  gentle  as  heaven's  own  light  to 
weary  eyes;  yet  is  it  firnl  as  adamant,  as  a  Eock  of 
Eternity.  Here  is  the  unfailing  confidence  of  Saints. 
They  build  on  the  everlasting  counsel  of  the  Supreme 
Will,  the  end-design  for  which  all  things  exist  and 
which  all  things  serve.  Sooner  than  that  should  fail, 
shall  earth  pass  and  time  decay  and  creation  itself  wax 
old  and  die.  On  this  foundation  of  God  let  our  faith 
build  a  hope  full  of  immortality :  on  Him  Whose  eternal 
will  is  the  safeguard  and  the  guarantee  of  our  eternal 
life.  Then  may  Faith  ?ing  her  serene  defiance  to  the 
powers  of  hell :  "  Who  shall  separate  us  from  the  love 
of  Christ?" 


PRINTED  BY  BALLANTYNE,  HANSON   AND   CO. 
EDINBURGH   AND   LONDON 


11 


Date  Due 


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